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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26018323">Eleven Summers Ago</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redbone135/pseuds/Redbone135'>Redbone135</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:53:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>27,968</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26018323</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redbone135/pseuds/Redbone135</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal Gold hasn't been back to his hometown of Storybrooke since a terrible incident his senior year of high school. In fact, he's almost forgotten about the high school sweetheart and childhood best friend that he left behind. So when he decides, with ulterior motives, to visit his family again this Christmas, he is surprised by the emotions that running into Emma Nolan and August Booth drag back up for him. Told in both present day and with flashbacks to that last summer when they were seventeen.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Baelfire | Neal Cassidy/Emma Swan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Neal hadn’t seen weather like this in over a decade, as he pulled into his father’s driveway, turning the key in his girlfriend’s car and listening to the soft hum of snow accumulating outside the windows. He knew as soon as he opened those doors, as soon as the cold air rushed in to bite him, he’d feel differently, but right now he was just overcome with the overwhelming peace and stillness that always seemed to surround life in Storybrooke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal had always hated peace and stillness. Or at least he had since he was seventeen and moved away to the big city.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And sure, they got snow like this in the city, but it wasn’t the same - it always melted quickly into a wet slush that seeped into your socks and turned an awful grey color within minutes of touching the ground. Nothing in the city ever stayed as pristine and perfect as it did in Storybrooke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a loud slapping sound as something hit the car’s glass window and Neal turned to see his little brother, face pressed against the glass as his breath left an uneven circle of fog on the window, cheeks squished outward, hands framing either side of his lean face, eagerness written across the few features Neal could see that weren’t covered in a hat and scarf. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laughed, “Okay, Gids, back up so I can open the door.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Quickly, Gideon stumbled backward, leaving bootprints in the snow - soon to be covered by the increasing precipitation - already throwing questions at Neal as he opened the door, dragging his messenger bag out of the passenger seat next to him and following the eager preteen back to the house. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m almost taller than you now!” Gideon exclaims as they burst into the entryway of his father’s house - the one Neal grew up in, lost his mother in, ran away from, hasn’t been back to in ten years - “Can you believe it? Mama says I’m going to be taller than papa in no time!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal nods, trying to look interested as he takes in the front hall, the smell of his father’s tea collection and a warm fire bringing him back a decade or so, as his stepmom comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron before pulling him into a warm embrace and standing on her toes to plant a soft kiss on his cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re so glad you could make it back for Christmas this year,” she says as she pulls away. She reaches up a hand to flatten one of his many cowlicks, but stops herself - feeling the distance between the boy who left her and the man that stands in the doorway now. Neal kinda wishes she hadn’t stopped herself, but he isn’t about to tell her that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Papa says we can decorate gingerbread houses and make cookies for Santa and even go sledding if you want!” Gideon exclaims and Neal can hear the dry voice in which his father had probably said all those things. His dad hadn’t been thrilled when Neal had said he was coming home - the two of them had barely spoken since their last big fight the night he moved out - and so Rumple Gold was probably all too thrilled to heap commitments and chores upon his son. But that was okay, what his father saw as punishment was a joy to Neal. He had missed out on most of Gideon’s childhood and so a few precious bonding memories while he was home this week couldn’t hurt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course we can!” he tells his brother before bringing his eyes back up to Belle. “Where is pops, by the way?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sighs, as if this is an argument they’ve already had. Because he knows this is an argument they’ve already had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s in his study. He says that if you’re finally ready to visit you can take the extra ten steps down the hall to see him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course. Because Rumple Gold was petty and stubborn on a good day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the joke was on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His son was even more so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal shrugs, shouldering his bag again as he makes his way up the stairs to the guest bedroom, feeling all the more confident in his decision to move to New York and stay there. He’d made a promise to an old friend, eleven years ago, that he wouldn’t come back to this town, and it was a promise he had always planned to keep. But he needed something from his old room, and Christmas had seemed like a nice excuse to get it. Besides, the statute of limitations on that promise was five years, and so Neal had more than paid back his debt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal, honey, don’t you want dinner? It’s a long drive, you must be starving?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, Belle, I’ll be down in a bit. I just want to set my stuff down and maybe take a shower.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And tear his room apart. Because he wanted to find it, that thing he’d come for, tuck it away in his bag as early as possible - that way if he and his father got into it again he could always leave before Christmas and head back home to the little fake tree in his apartment and another year of watching black and white movies while blitzed out of his mind on eggnog. Alone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But when he got to his room, the bag in his hand fell to the floor with an angry thud, Neal having to make a conscious effort not to grind his jaw so hard it popped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because Neal might have been more stubborn than his father, but Rumple was smarter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All right, where’s all my stuff?” he asked, storming into his dad’s study, furious at the effort that must have gone into this sort of well-timed revenge. It was exactly the kind of stunt Neal would have pulled, and that’s what made him so angry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What stuff?” his father asks, innocently enough, lowering his paper and picking up his glass of scotch to take a slow, satisfied sip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve turned my room into some sort of… girly… it’s not… where’s...?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, when we figured you weren’t coming back, we made your room into Belle’s craft room. There’s still a guest bed in there for you, won’t that be enough?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very funny,” Neal says humorlessly as he approaches his father’s desk, hands gripping the edge of the polished mahogany as he leans forward to tower over his unbothered father. “Where are my things?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, you mean the things I tried to call you about? The things I left a message about? The things that you never got back to me about?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Neal mumbles, feeling heat rise in his cheeks, from embarrassment or anger he wasn’t sure. “Those things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, you never did call me back about that. I offered to box them up so you could come get them. But when even Belle couldn’t reach you, we figured they must not be important to you. So we sold them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal feels his headache growing, only in Storybrooke for an hour and already he can tell it’s going to be a doozy, his fingers flexing as he tried his best to think of something. Because if his dad had sold it…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course… some of the more valuable things might still be in my shop,” Rumple offers with a glint in his eye, and suddenly Neal realizes that his dad knows exactly why he’s here. And, judging by the roadblocks he has already put in Neal’s way, he doesn’t approve. Fine. Neal’s never needed his approval. But he does need that one stupid thing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I have your keys?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lend my shop keys to someone with a criminal record? You must be insane, son. What kind of business man would I be if I did that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know about business man, but you’d be a half decent dad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His father made a small tsking noise as he stood from his chair, placing a hand on Neal’s shoulder as he led him over toward the study door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a good thing we already decided that I’m not, years ago, then. No, stay. Make yourself at home. Have dinner with me and Belle and your brother. I’ll take you into the shop with me tomorrow and we’ll see if you can’t find what you’re looking for.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re kidding, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Son, I’ve never been more serious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal had never been very patient. He’d always been a tad impulsive, and single-minded, and sticky-fingered. It got him in his fair share of trouble as a kid. And a teenager. And an adult too, if he was being honest. Good thing he always had never had the capacity for learning from his mistakes, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least not in Storybrooke. He was trying something new in New York. Building a life there that he could be proud of, even if his dad wasn’t. Even if Belle changed the subject whenever he brought it up at dinner and Gideon looked down at his plate like he had listened to the Golds argue about Neal’s choices before. But Neal liked his choices, and he liked his life, and he just needed one more thing to make it perfect.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, after everyone had gone to bed, he crept down the stairs to his dad’s study, picked the lock on the top drawer of his desk, and extracted the shop keys with as little fanfare as possible. He’d even remembered that the floorboards in the front entryway squeaked, and so instead he took the back door, creeping around the edge of the house - the snow still thankfully falling to cover his footprints - and started his girlfriend’s car with the headlights still off, waiting until he was far away from the driveway and onto the main road before turning them back on again as he drove back to Main Street. It had been a decade, but Neal remembered the way to his father’s shop so well that he probably could have driven there blindfolded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because there had been a time when he and his dad had gotten along. When he’d worked after school and summers in that shop, when he’d taken his high school sweetheart to get ice cream at the store next door, when he and his best friend growing up had split meals at Granny’s to ogle at Ruby and avoid having to pay more than their meager allowances could afford.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All those thoughts hurt now. The sweetheart, probably grown and someone else’s love these days. The best friend - no longer even an acquaintance, Neal hadn’t bothered to call and let him know he was coming into town. Even Ruby was grown, and Granny was too old to run the cafe by herself, and he and his father hadn’t been cordial since the arrest his senior year of high school. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulls up to the shop, heading around to the back door so that any late-night stragglers on Main Street wouldn’t notice, and slides the key in the lock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had he been a smarter man, he might have thought this was all just a tad too easy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unfortunately for Neal, that thought didn’t kick in until he had the back door open and the alarm system inside was blaring loudly at him that it needed a password. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It needed a password in sixty seconds or it would alert the police. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal tried his birthday first, that had always been his dad’s first choice growing up. 0323. No good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tried Gideon’s next, thankful that he remembered it. He always tried to send a gift and a hand-drawn card. Even if sometimes he was a little early… or late. But either he hadn’t remembered it correctly, or that was no good either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The little box blinked at him, warning he had one more try. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a shame, because he could see the glass cabinet his father kept all the jewelry in from here. Wondered if it might just be faster to run over, smash the glass, pocket all the rings, and run back to his car. It wasn’t robbery if your dad took it from you first, right?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Put your hands up where I can see them!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shit,” he swore under his breath before turning around with his hands raised, and whining, “I hadn’t even set off the alarms yet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alarms?” the cop asks, stepping forward with a frown that creases her forehead. “No, we got a phone call from the shop owner. Said someone was breaking in - Neal Gold, is that you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Emma Nolan?” Neal asks, his eyes wide as she steps into the streetlight, her entire frame seeming to light up - no, to glow - as she lowers her gun, putting it back in the holster. But while his face floods with relief, and a little bit of longing for what they used to have, hers darkens incredibly. She seems much less excited to see him. And, all right, he can’t blame her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Well, this takes me back," he chuckles, hoping to disarm her suspicions with a smile, just like he always had in the past.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she wasn't falling for it this time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” she sighs, “Hands behind your back, Neal. I’m taking you in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But Emma!” he protests, “It’s me! This is my dad’s shop! You know me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” she insists through gritted teeth. “That’s why I’m arresting you, Gold. You’ve a right to remain silent, though we both know you probably won’t use it…”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>
    <em>Eleven Summers Ago</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, put your hands where I can see them,” she calls as he trips and falls down the path to the river, bare feet leaving soft indents in the mud as she continues her pursuit. “Seriously, Neal, I’m going to count to ten and then it’s not funny anymore!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So it is still funny, for about ten more seconds?” he asks with a raised eyebrow as she corners him on the edge of the dock, his only escape route now the cool lake water behind him. She’s furious, he can tell by the way the bridge of her nose scrunches up like a rabbit while she bites her lip in frustration and plants both hands on either side of her suntanned hips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s furious, and she’s gorgeous, and he’s never felt more alive then when she is nearby. The way, after three years together and a lifetime of friendship, his heart still beats a little faster when he’s looking at her. Emma is sweet tea on a summer day, she is a crisp breeze and warm hand in his in the autumn, hats and scarves and snow angels in the winter, hormones and fresh flowers in the spring. Emma is a year-round sort of love that everyone said he would grow out of, but if that’s the case Neal wants to be Peter Pan. He wants to be young and dumb and in love with her for the rest of his life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can hear the sounds of their two best friends, laughing and shouting along the path Neal and Emma have just run down, panting as they catch up to the young lovers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s their summer of seventeen, their last year before adulthood swallows them whole, and it’s a terrifying prospect. The four of them, Emma, Neal, Lily, and August have been best friends for as long as they can remember, had walked the stage together at graduation just last month, and none of them want to admit there might be a future out there where the four of them aren’t quite as inseparable. So they’re pretending this summer is just like any other. No one has mentioned Neal’s college acceptance letter yet. No one brings up August’s plan to backpack across southern Asia. No one mentions the dead end job they wished Lily would give up or the fact that Emma refuses to settle on any one specific dream. Summer is a time for fun, they can worry about all those concerns the first time the wind chills them in the fall. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal, give me my book back!” she insists, stamping her foot as he continues to back toward the edge of the dock, hands shoved in his pockets. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on Em, now isn’t the time for reading,” he insists with a grin, reaching out to grab her hand, tug her close to him as their friends watch the edges of her temper soften just by his proximity. “It’s the time for swimming!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you dare!” she insists as his fingers tighten around her wrist, tugging her backward with him as they both crash into the water, bright and clear like the summer sky. There is that disorienting feeling of falling skyward as both of them resurface and she immediately begins to shout and splash at him as he begins his casual backstroke further out into the water. He’s always been the strongest swimmer of the four.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t believe you!” she howls at him, treading water as Lily lowers her feet into the lake at the edge of the dock and August stands awkwardly behind her, his shoulders slumped and hands shoved into his swim shorts pockets as he watches the drama unfold in front of them. “You’ve ruined it! And I was only halfway through!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have your book,” Neal tells her, holding his hands up as she catches him, attaching herself to his shoulder and causing him to kick harder to keep them both afloat. “I swear Emma, I’d never do that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was funny to make her mad, never funny to keep it that way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You put it in your pocket?” she accuses, confused as her fingers explore under the water and Neal tries to control himself as those agile hands slip into the pocket of his swim trunks and make him think of things he really shouldn’t be thinking of out here in the daylight in front of their friends. “Where is it, Gold?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods back to shore, where August pulls the little, tattered copy of a Nicholas Sparks novel out of his own pocket, waving it around with a smug smirk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s amazing,” Emma breathes. “I never saw it change hands. How did you two do that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A magician never reveals his secret,” Neal says with a grin, managing to untangle himself from her grip and float backward, feeling the sun dry the drops of water on his chest the moment it’s exposed, floating lazily back into the water, warm and content. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He might not, but you give me a little more of that attention and I just might,” August calls, setting the book down gently before lowering himself to sit next to Lily and kick water in Emma’s direction. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had it been anyone else, Neal would have been ready to get his knuckles bloody for that kind of comment. He knows Emma doesn’t need him to protect her, in fact, when they were little, Emma beat up her fair share of his bullies, but he can’t help but feel a little protective of the princess he still couldn’t believe actually wanted him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the only person Neal could trust more than Emma was August Booth. The two of them had been best friends for as long as they could remember, so close in looks and behaviors that through most of their childhood the only thing telling them apart was the dark brown of Neal’s eyes and the bright blue of August's. As they’d grown older, other differences had sprouted up: Neal’s sulky sadness after losing his mother, August’s sense of style encouraged by a little more family income, Neal’s brash impulsiveness and August’s quick-thinking that always seemed to clean up their messes. It had worried Neal at first, when he started dating Emma back in sophomore year, that the two boys would drift apart. But he and August had grown closer than ever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You won’t like the kind of attention I give you, if you help him steal another one of my books!” Emma calls back and Neal is filled with pride at her quick-wit. She’s a smart girl, funny and brave, and the only bad decision she’s ever made was saying “yes” when he’d asked her to be his girlfriend. And to fault her for that would be counter-intuitive to his best interests. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woods are filled with the sound of laughter and splashing as August and Lily join them in the lake, filling the rest of their afternoon with the kind of enthusiastic activity that leads to a comfortable, tired ache at the end of the day. The kind of good numb that helps you forget that time is passing and instead grounds you in the moment so thoroughly that it feels like it can last forever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After summer days come summer nights - warm and humid, but calm and quiet as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fire crackles at their campsite as Lily and Emma roast marshmallows, watching the edges crisp and burn just enough to turn the cheap chocolate Neal bought at the gas station on the drive over into a melted mess that stained their cheeks and fingertips with sugar. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you worried about what’s going to happen when you go away to college this fall?” August asks as he and Neal pull cold beer cans out of the cooler in the trunk of August’s yellow Bug - the only car between the four of them - and slams the hatch on the back of the car down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No. Neal wasn’t worried at all. In fact, he had a plan to make everything better, but he was still working up the courage for that one, still not confident enough in his decision to even run it by his best friend yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he just shrugs, popping open the tab and bringing the beer to his lips to sip at the foam that escapes the can just a little too quickly and spills down the side and over his fingers like condensation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d be worried,” August mumbles, leaning against the back of the car and watching the two girls laugh by the flickering firelight. Neal can’t take his eyes off the way it makes his girlfriend's blonde curls sparkle like actual gold, but he supposes Lily is attractive too, in her own way. “Emma won’t even talk about next year - it makes me think she’s got something big planned.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, that’s why you’re the smart one,” Neal laughs. “You notice these things, and then you worry. It’s also why I’m the happier one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>August grumbles at that, his usual surly self.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Neal suggests, trying to make it sound like he just came up with the idea. “There’s another dock a couple campsites over. You should take Lily out there to watch the meteor shower tonight. Just the two of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watches his friend for a reaction, but doesn’t get one. He’s been trying to play matchmaker with August and Lily for two years now, wanting to see his best friend as happy as he is, but hasn’t had much luck. And he’s not sure why. Because August and Lily have so much in common, they’re both brooding and clever, both gifted with enough common sense to get by, but cursed with a love of adventure that gets them into trouble. They’d make a cute couple, Neal thinks, and since Lily is staying here next year, they’d make a realistic one as well. Selfishly, he also wishes he didn’t have to feel so guilty every time they spent time as a group of four, knowing that he and his girlfriend could be a little obnoxious at times. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know, if you want some time alone with Emma, all you have to do is ask?” August says dryly, his tone implying that Neal’s attempts at matchmaking are growing a tad draining on him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!” Neal tries to assure his friend. “It’s not that. It’s just… you know…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I don’t,” August insists. “And you don’t either, you idiot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So they end up, all four of them, crammed to the edge of the dock, watching the stars shoot across the sky like children running through an open field. Neal points out every one he sees, eagerly tracing it with the tip of his finger. Emma closes her eyes tight, making a wish - the same wish - on every single one. Lily laughs and lays back with her hands folded under her head as she just soaks in the comradery. And August chimes in with facts and stories he’s made up, interrupting Emma’s constant wish-making and Neal’s enthusiastic chatter. They’ve driven out here since August turned sixteen and got his car, every summer spent making wishes that always came true. Neal hoped this year would be the same. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve got some blankets back in the car, if anyone wants one,” Neal offers, looking back at Lily, “They’re probably more comfortable than this dock.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal,” Emma laughs, hitting him in the shoulder and then apologizing for it with a soft nuzzle of his neck, “It’s way too hot for blankets tonight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, she doesn’t object later, alone in their tent, when he wraps them both in a blanket and kisses softly at her neck and shoulders, still warm from baking in the sun this afternoon. In fact, all her soft sounds are the exact opposite of objections, moans of encouragement as they explore each other, their courage growing more and more each day. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because they’ve been in love for two years now, and they’re both so terribly frightened of the future that the present doesn’t seem so scary anymore. Because it’s time, for both of them, and they know it. But it just never seems to be the right place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So eventually, when she’s gotten a little too loud that he worries their friends can hear them from the other tents, he brings his hand down softly over her mouth, feels her teeth sink into the flesh of his palm, letting out a small yelp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughs as he pulls away with a grin, eyebrows raised in a silent accusation. You bit me!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She licks her lips, pulling him back against her and wrapping the edges of their blanket around them a little tighter as they both settle in for sleep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” he whispers. “Now and always.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you too,” she answers back with a kiss, “Then and forever.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“It’s cold in here, can I at least get a blanket?” Neal whined, rubbing his hands together as he leaned forward on the bench of the holding cell, watching her fuss with some paperwork in the filing cabinet across the tiny Storybrooke sheriff’s office.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really? I thought you’d be warmer, you know, with your pants on fire like that,” she grumbles without looking up. “Because you’re a liar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I got that, thanks,” he says, scratching at his head in frustration. He wishes she would just look at him. He was pretty sure he could clear all this mess up if she would just look at him long enough for one of his charming smiles to work. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And also a little because he couldn't stop looking at her. Ten years had been kind to say the least, he could hardly spot any differences between the youthful free spirit he had known and the grumpy cop avoiding eye contact across the room. Like looking at a photograph, an experience he had intentionally avoided over the last decade, and he was disappointed to find that her beauty still caused his breath to catch in his throat, that desperate need to please her still causing his heart to race like a child. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He needed to get out of here now, like a werewolf about to change, being locked in this tiny room with her was not safe for either of them and she refused to see it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I at least try calling my dad again?” he asks, petulantly flexing his frozen toes inside his thick boots to get some blood flowing again. The fact that the bench he is sitting on is made of freezing metal doesn’t help. The last time he was in here it had been scorching hot and had left him sweaty and uncomfortable - now he would have killed for the kind of heat that would make him feel just a little less vulnerable around her cold gaze. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You get one phone call,” she shoots back, slamming the filing cabinet and walking across the room to pick up another box of files to sort. It was late - why was she here with him… unless she wanted to be? The thought had occurred to him that having Neal Gold locked behind bars where he couldn’t get away was a situation she had probably thought about more than once in the last decade. Then again, he didn’t want to think about how the rest of that fantasy played out for her… probably much less sexy than he hoped and a lot more viciously violent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s bullshit and you know it,” he growls, his voice low, “We both know this isn’t the first time I’ve been through this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At that, she finally looks up, her blue eyes holding his gaze for a moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was cruel and he shouldn’t have said it. So he tries instead to flash her another grin, to let her know that there are no hard feelings on his part, at least not aimed at her. But the return of his grin only causes her to look away again, stomping over and digging out her keys to unlock the cell, making sure to step back and keep a wide distance from him as he exited the little cell and walked over to the phone sitting on her desk that she had let him use when they’d first arrived. His dad, of course, had not picked up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He dials again, this time the home phone number - because if Rumple won’t get up, Belle and Gideon will - and waits patiently as it rings. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, officer Nolan,” he says with a grin, covering the mouthpiece of the phone for a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s wrong,” she mumbles, finally putting down the file and leaning against her desk, letting her eyes roam over what was left of the boy she had known. And the answer was, not much, Neal had made sure of that. No longer wild-haired and messy clothes, he held himself with a little more dignity now that he was grown. Dignity he was struggling to hold onto as he called his father from the jail while being held hostage by the sexiest woman Neal had ever known. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he felt incredibly guilty for that thought, because his girlfriend’s car was still parked outside his father’s shop. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No longer Nolan?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not an officer,” she smiles, and he is about to say something suggestive when his dad finally picks up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello, Gold residence. How may I be of service this evening?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cut the crap,” Neal growls into the phone. “You had me arrested.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is a pause on the other end of the line.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had a burglar arrested. Were you that burglar?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you just come get me? The arresting officer won’t let me go until you agree not to press charges.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well… I suppose I did forget to get you something for Christmas this year. I could drop the charges and we’ll call it a gift.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pops, you are working my last nerve,” Neal growls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good,” his father says, dropping all pretense of pleasantries for something much darker. “Because you’ve been working mine for the last ten years. So I will come get you. If, and only if, you agree not to make this entire trip about your foolish quest to steal from me what is rightfully mine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well that was just a lie. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You gave it to me,” Neal insists. “Ten years ago. You gave it to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Circumstances are different now. So I will come get you if you agree to smile, and act cordial, and make sure that your stepmother and little brother have the best damn Christmas they could ask for. And then, if you behave, maybe I’ll consider giving it back to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I just buy it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something that valuable, you really think I’d just sell it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine, I promise. Now come get me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you. I’m on my way. Oh, and do tell Emma ‘hello’ for me. She is such a sweet girl, isn’t she?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal growls again as he slams down the phone, so loudly that Emma jumps from the shock of it. It probably is startling, to see him and his father at each other's throats like that. The last time she had seen him, his father and he had been very close. Then again, the last time she had seen him, the two of them had also been very close. His heart throbs just thinking about it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, small talk,” he laughs awkwardly, leaning back against the desk and running his fingers through his close-cropped hair. He misses when it was longer and she used to tug at the curls to tease him. He hadn’t missed it in years, liked the way his shorter hair was far more presentable with his neatly trimmed goatee and nice clothes. But looking at her, so unchanged by time, he missed the messy curls and being able to run his fingers through them when he was nervous.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” she laughs back, pushing herself up so that she is seated on the desk, her feet swinging above the floor. “We’ve never been very good at that, have we?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laughs, or at least intends to, but it comes out as more of a sad sigh. He should really apologize to her. Explain everything. He owed her that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, you’re in town for Christmas?” she asks quickly, cutting him off before he can make things uncomfortable for them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. I could only get six days off work, but I figure it’s better than nothing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s what hangs between them, heavy and hollow, filling the room with a palpable silence that never used to be there before. Since they were little Neal had told Emma everything. But now, he wants nothing more than to keep the details of his life tightly guarded and close to his chest. Suddenly ashamed, the way his family has been implying he should be for years.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And what’s worse, he’s not ashamed of his choices. He has a lot in his life to be proud of. He’s ashamed that he would even need to tell her. That they had let their relationship get to a point where she didn’t already know all his secrets. Where she really didn’t know him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he is compelled, against his better judgment to fix that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I buy you a drink tomorrow night? I always wanted to go to the Rabbit Hole but never got to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks down, and he knows her answer without her ever having to open her mouth. Knows the feeling of rejection before she even has to speak it into existence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fortunately he is saved by the arrival of his father, the front door slamming open as his dad makes the kind of entrance only Rumple Gold can. Surrounded by flurries of snow still coming down, the tip of his cane hits the floor with a loud click and he grins at them both as if this is exactly where he wanted to be around midnight on the Sunday before Christmas week. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then again, unlike Neal, Rumple never went anywhere he didn’t want to go. So maybe it was exactly where he wanted to be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sheriff Booth!” he exclaims. “Thank goodness you were here to prevent such a senseless crime!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal doesn’t like the amount of emphasis he puts on the word senseless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t like that name even more, looking around the office for the man he must have missed when they entered. Because that’s just what he needs tonight. Not just a run in with Emma Nolan, but with August Booth as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there is no man. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>What there is, is an uneasy smile on Emma’s face and a golden ring on her left hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You married August?” Neal spits, and there is a lot more anger in his voice than even he was expecting. Rage, bubbling up and coursing through his veins, he is struck by the sudden, impulsive urge to break something. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, how is the husband?” his father asks, his smile so sharp it could cut through glass. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good. He’s away on a writing retreat right now,” Emma mumbles, her cheeks a bright red as she purposely avoids looking at Neal. Good. Now he isn’t the only one with something to be ashamed of. That rat bastard. Neal is going to kill him when he gets his hands on him. Slow and painful. He’ll go back to court. He doesn’t care. August is going to die.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Another writing retreat,” Rumple drones, “How exotic. What is this one code for? Rehab? Jail? Running off to Thailand with all of your savings and a new girlfriend? I do love a good August Booth story, they are always so full of clandestine adventures.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emma turns to glare and the pain in her eyes is enough to squelch any anger Neal had previously been feeling. His need to protect her kicking back in strong enough that his temper could be tampered for a moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pops, that’s none of our business,” he corrects quickly, nodding an apology to the love of his life. “I’m sorry, Emma. Let me buy you a drink tomorrow. We can catch up, like old times.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal, I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” she sighs. “I have a husband.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal has a girlfriend,” Rumple cuts in quickly. And, oh, shit, yeah, he does have a girlfriend. Tamara. He’s an ass for forgetting about that detail. He’s a bastard for using it to his advantage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I do,” he smiles. “So it’ll just be two old friends, swapping stories about domestic bliss.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s just a drink Em, we’re both adults. We can keep our pants on for an hour or two.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks away and, okay, he probably shouldn’t have brought that up either. What was with him tonight?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” she concedes. “Coffee. Tomorrow at noon. If you’re late, I’m leaving.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I won’t be late,” he promises as he turns to leave with his father.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The snow is startling as they step back out into the biting cold. Neal clutches his coat a little tighter around him, thankful for the cold wind, an easy excuse for the chills running up and down his spine as butterflies dance in his stomach like flurries. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re welcome,” his dad sighs as they get into the car, Neal immediately beginning to fidget with the heater as his dad starts the engine. Christmas music blares from the radio and startles them both as the windshield wipers began to push the snow away from their field of vision and his dad pulls the car around to take them back to the house. Because of course they aren’t going to get his car tonight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, thanks for  picking me up after you had me arrested,” Neal concedes, turning to stare out the window and through the snow as Emma Nolan - no, Booth - leaves the station to struggle through the snow to her car. So she had been staying late for him…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes I ask myself what I did to deserve such a dimwitted son,” his dad mumbles, shaking his head as Emma disappears from view.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>
    <em>Eleven Summers Ago</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>The dishes crash into the sink, soap subs splashing everywhere as Neal hurries to finish clearing the table before either of his parents have time to notice he’s gone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keep your pants on, son. Your girlfriend is still going to be there after you’ve done your chores,” Rumple laughs as he enters the kitchen, opening the fridge to retrieve another jar of baby food and then turning to look at the mountain of mess in the kitchen sink. “I hope you don’t think that counts as washing them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to let them soak first,” Neal lies as he finishes wiping down the dinner table with a wet paper towel, tossing it into the trashcan like a basketball to save himself the extra steps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His dad howls with laughter. “Nice try. I want them washed and dried. Then you can go out for a late night coffee with Emma Nolan.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pop!” Neal whines, dragging the word out into three syllables. He wants to wiggle and stamp his foot like he would have when he was younger, but Belle had put an end to the reign of Neal when she’d moved in three years ago. She was the best stepmom he could have hoped for, but she didn’t tolerate his antics half as easily as his dad did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you don’t want to wash the dishes we can revisit the topic of your curfew,” his dad warns, his tone still light and loving, but the hint of a threat is there. “Then Emma Nolan will have to buy her own coffee any time after ten. You’re seventeen, son, act like it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that was fair. Because Rumple was always fair, as much as Neal hated it. He’d gotten a little too used to being spoiled after his mom died. For nine years he had been the center of his dad’s world. Now he had to share that real estate with Belle and Gideon. But where most kids would have been upset, Neal thought this second family couldn’t have arrived at a more convenient time. Because it meant a lot more freedom for Neal, who was ready to leave the nest in a couple weeks and was hoping to get his dad’s blessing on a few ideas he was still mulling over. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he hurries back to the sink, washing the dishes as fast as he can, soap suds soaking through his shirt as the running water spills and cascades everywhere, probably making a bigger mess than the one he started with. But his dad had said the dishes had to be washed and dried. Not the kitchen floor. So when he’s done, he doesn’t go get his father or Belle for their seal of approval - he knows they wouldn’t give it - instead he sneaks off to his room to put on a nicer, dryer shirt and shove his wallet, cell phone, and house keys into his pocket as quickly and quietly as possible before sneaking out the front door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because Emma could wait, but the end of summer rager going on at Regina Mills’s house wasn’t going to last all night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The party was already well underway by the time he arrived, the front door open as music and lights spill out onto the lawn, drunk teenagers occasionally spilling out as well in fits of laughter and last minute confessions before they all head off to the unknown futures awaiting them. Neal is glad he got here when he did, there is no way the cops aren’t coming to shut this down by the end of the hour. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Mills household has always been the biggest one in Storybrooke, and its adult resident was hardly ever home, making it the perfect location for parties. It was one of these parties, three years ago, where Neal had asked Emma out on their first date. Another one of these parties where he had gotten the scar on his leg for trying to climb the backyard fence to avoid the police only to get his untied shoelaces stuck at the top and come tumbling down onto concrete. His dad hadn’t asked any questions when he and August had shown up at the house bloody and missing a shoe, but Belle had. And it was one of these parties where he had first confessed to Emma that he was going off to college next year, hoping for a reaction but not finding one in her carefully crafted expression. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sees her and Lily, dancing in the living room, surrounded by other students, a red solo cup in each of their hands as they sway to a beat not entirely aligned with the song. It doesn’t matter, they’re having fun, laughing and smiling as they shout the words along with the speakers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey!” Neal yells as he approaches, turning to Lily. “Do you mind if I cut in?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods her approval, looking around for a moment before announcing loudly, “I’m going to go find August.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And just like that she has melted off into the crowd, leaving Neal and Emma alone in a room full of people. He places his hands on her hips, pulling her closer to him as she continues to move to a beat he can’t quite hear, but struggles to emulate instead of taking the lead and forcing her into rhythm with the actual song. Emma wasn’t the kind of girl you could ever force into anything. She was the only one in this town more stubborn than Neal. He’d always loved that, always gone along with her, been her yes-man, but now it worried him. Because she wouldn’t talk about her plans, so his were going to have to be good enough. And he wasn’t sure they were.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” he laughs as he leans in to talk in her ear over the music, “Do you come here often?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughs, taking another sip from the cup in her hand. “If you’re trying to hit on me, you should know I have a boyfriend.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh yeah?” he asks back, his hands griping her a little more tightly as he finds the courage to press against her. “He big and scary?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He could kick your scrawny ass!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal laughs louder at that, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Hey Em, can we talk?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now is not the time for talking, Gold,” she says, mimicking his tone from the lake last weekend. “Now is the time for dancing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re going to have to talk about next year eventually!” He reminds her, but she’s too lost in the music to listen, and her swaying, the enticing rhythm of her curves, is enough to dissuade the conversation as he gets lost in the music as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the end of the night - the party still going, but Neal’s curfew fast approaching - he and August pour both the girls into the back of August's bug, smiling softly as they giggle and chatter. Emma is wearing Neal’s flannel shirt like a trauma victim wears an emergency blanket, Lily clutching August's leather jacket like a pillow. Both are going to have killer headaches tomorrow morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal buckles into the passenger seat as August starts the car, pulling out onto the road in the direction of the Nolan’s comfortable loft. Emma’s family has never had much money, but they more than made up for it with an abundance of love and support for their princess of an only daughter. She is always the first one they drop off, Neal is next, and August and Lily who live across the street from each other normally return home together in the end. Sometimes Neal wishes he knew what the two said to each other, after he and Emma were gone. He hopes it is sweet, possibly romantic, but he knows it is probably more forced small talk of two people who wouldn’t have bothered with a friendship were it not for he and Emma.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you going to tell her dad?” August asks as he looks over his shoulder to Emma sleeping comfortably in the backseat, Lily in her lap snoring lightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing. I’m going to put her on the doorstep and ring the bell before running off,” Neal laughs, but he’s only half kidding. Emma’s dad isn’t his biggest fan and Sheriff Nolan sort of terrifies him. On more than one occasion he’d been chewed out by her parents for being a bad influence, and Neal always just nodded along, too afraid to point out that most of the shenanigans they got up to were Emma’s idea. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Classy,” August jokes, putting on his blinker before turning down another side street. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know me, always striving for boyfriend of the year,” Neal jokes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. So have you thought about how you’re going to do it? What you’re going to say?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal’s heart skips a beat. He hasn’t told August about his plans, was hoping they were still a secret, because if August knew, Emma did too and that would ruin the surprise. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But yes, he has thought a lot about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to ask my dad for some money first,” he confides. “Nothing fancy, but enough that she’ll know I tried, you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>August looks confused for a moment and Neal feels his entire face heat up. They were talking about different things. Oh, God, he was babbling about the one secret he’d kept from his best friend, and August had been asking a different question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait, what?” they both ask at the same time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You first,” August nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, it was your question,” Neal reminds him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay. I was just wondering how you’re going to break things off? You two have been joined at the hip for three years now, but with you leaving town in a couple weeks… Have you thought about what you’re going to say to her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Neal feels his heart sink at the very thought of leaving Emma. There’s a lump in his throat he has to push down to keep his voice from cracking with just the idea of being separated from her. “I… um… I wasn’t going to end things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>August pulls the car into park outside of Emma’s apartment building, pulling up on the parking break before turning to look, stone-faced at Neal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re going to try long distance?” He asks, his tone more judgmental than Neal had ever heard his friend. August was always there to support his crazy schemes. He had been hoping August would support this one too, when it was time to tell him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something like that,” Neal mumbles, more to himself as he climbs out of the car, helping Emma carefully out of the back seat. She leans heavily on his shoulder as he helps her up the stairs, her blonde hair tickling his face so badly it is a struggle not to sneeze. But he doesn’t mind. He’d carry her for the rest of their lives if it meant getting to see her have this much fun. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But as he goes to ring the doorbell she stops his hand, leaning in to whisper so loudly that he has to take a small step back. “I don’t want to talk about next year Neal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, baby,” he assures her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “It can wait a little longer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can it wait forever?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No. Because eventually the future is going to catch up to them. And he’d like a plan in place when it did. He knows Emma has never been one for plans, knows that she hadn’t applied for any universities this fall, knows that she probably hasn’t thought much further than next Saturday. But he has, and he hopes she won’t fault him for that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I ring the doorbell now?” he asks nervously as she hugs him tightly, her weight seeming to give out as he struggles to hold her up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unfortunately, he doesn’t have to ring the bell. The door is ripped open, and there is David Nolan, glaring down at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re late,” Mr. Nolan announces, looking at his watch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My phone says it’s only-” Neal begins, but he’s cut off by Sheriff Nolan lifting Emma from his shoulder, shaking his head sadly at the state she is in. He can hear the words now: bad influence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But they never come. Instead the door is just slammed in his face as he shoves his hands deeper into his pockets and sulks back down the stairs where August is parked and waiting for him. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Neal sees the little yellow Bug pull up to the front of Granny’s and his heart practically stops. That car. Just the sight fills him with so much anxiety. That car had once meant freedom for him. Joy rides with his best friend down dirt roads at the edge of town. A mode of transportation readily available any time he needed to borrow it for a date. But it had soured, like his memories of Storybrooke. Become nothing but flashing red and blue lights and a promise he had made in the middle of the night to a friend he shouldn’t have trusted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wondered, a little, if his spare key would still work on it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re early,” Emma laughs as she slides into the booth across from him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t want to miss a second with you,” he smiles, enjoying the way she still rolls her eyes at his cheesy lines. She isn’t in her uniform today, instead just a t-shirt and jeans underneath a red leather coat and a knit cap, snow crusting the edges of her boots as she begins to unbundle across the table from him. She is softer than she used to be, he can’t help but notice. Not plumper or even rounded, just soft. Like someone had sanded away her edges, harsh curves now a little less so at her hips and chest. The dark eyeliner and red lipstick she used to wear to appear older now gone, much subtler tones replacing them. It was still his Emma, but the adult version. The one he had once dreamed of waking up next to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you ordered yet?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I was waiting for you,” he answers, flagging down a waitress he doesn’t recognize. He had been shocked when he’d first come in, at how little things had changed. But as he’d looked at a menu, examined the staff behind the counter, watched patrons file in and out through the door, he had realized that everything had changed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What can I get for you?” The waitress asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A hot chocolate, cinnamon and whipped cream on top?” he asks, remembering her drink with a grin. He can still smell the cinnamon on her breath, taste the warm chocolate on her lips. “And I’ll take-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A pumpkin spice latte,” Emma cuts him off, just as smug. “Like a girl.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The waitress walks away, and he doesn’t have the heart to tell Emma he doesn’t drink lattes anymore. Doesn’t bother with cream or sugar at all, really. Tamara has him counting calories these days. He would have given up coffee completely if it wasn’t the ideal way of distributing the caffeine he needs to stay up for late nights at work. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” she says, interrupting his thoughts as she folds her hands over the table. “Tell me about this girlfriend of yours. Is she pretty?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he answers, suddenly struggling to pull forward and image of Tamara. It shouldn’t have been that hard. “I don’t have any pictures on me, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. But she’s got a really great smile. And she’s smart too. Smarter than me, for sure. A lawyer, actually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have always liked them smarter than you,” she jokes as their drinks arrive and she picks hers up to sip with a sigh of comfort. “What about you? Are you a lawyer too, or did you decide to major in pre-med? Am I looking at Dr. Gold now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighs. “I didn’t go to college.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” she admits, looking sadly into her drink. He raises an eyebrow in question. How could she possibly have known that? “I mean... I know you didn't go to Tallahassee. I must have called the FSU registrar a million times with a million different lies, just trying to figure out where you went. It wasn’t until about five years ago, I overheard Belle and Gideon talking on Main Street about his brother in New York. Figured that had to be you. Thought maybe you got into art school there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah... I mean no...,” he stutters, though his throat is dry. She had tried to find him in Tallahassee? “Yeah, I went to New York after… Um… but I work in hospitality now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What does that mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m a bartender.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That hadn’t actually been his first job - he’d started in construction, needing something that didn’t require a degree or mind a criminal record. It had taken him a couple years to get the charge expunged, and save up enough for his certification to tend bar. He liked it better than construction, that was for sure, but he still didn’t know if that’s what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Tamara had been trying to push him towards going back to school, but she wasn’t able to provide any more direction than that, and so he stayed where he was. Neal had been a big planner in his youth and it had gotten him jack shit. Now, he preferred to just go with the flow of things. The path of least resistance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what about you,” he says, changing the subject. “Sheriff now? That’s amazing. Following in daddy's footsteps, he must be so proud!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiled. “He is. But he’d be proud no matter what.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal waited for her to go on, but she didn’t. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They both laughed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, elephant in the room,” she chuckled. “I’ll start. August is a writer. He’s got a couple published short stories and a collection of poems. He keeps saying he’s going to write a novel, but I’ll believe that when I see it. He travels a lot for work, but we have a great little house over by his father’s workshop. He picks up shifts there when money gets tight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see he’s still driving the bug,” Neal nods to the little car out the window. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, he’s got a motorcycle these days. Bought it after his first story was published. Gave me the bug because I needed a car to… I needed a car. I honestly can’t believe it still runs, can you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal doesn’t like to think about that car for too long. Instead he changes the subject.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He didn’t want to come with you today?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that Neal was complaining.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s… traveling. On a writer’s retreat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, you said that last night. Where is the retreat?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She paused, her eyes growing stormy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t… he didn’t… I don’t know where my husband is right now, okay? Are you happy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s not at a retreat, is he?” Neal asks, reaching across the table to take her hand, running his thumb over the back of her wrist. He wants to be mad about all of this. But he hates seeing her hurting too much to hold onto that anger. None of this was her fault. He was still going to murder August when he sees him though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shakes her head, wiping at her eyes. “He gets like this sometimes. Every couple of years. We both took it really hard when you left Neal. We both spent a long time trying to find you. I think he feels guilty… like he’s not good enough to fill your shoes, like you would hate him for trying to take your place… every couple of years he gets in one of these moods. Sometimes he’s only gone for a month or two, sometimes a year. But he always comes back. He always tries harder the next time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Emma,” Neal sighs. “You don’t deserve that. The guy is a dick. And I should know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Should you?” she says, snatching her hand away quickly. “Because you didn’t call. You were his best friend for seventeen years and then you just went up in smoke. You wouldn’t even come back to be his best man at the wedding.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, it would have helped if August had told him there was a wedding. But of course he hadn’t, Neal thought bitterly. Because if Neal had known… he takes a deep breath, just trying very hard not to see red. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen, Em. Let me explain. After I got arrested that summer-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she cuts him off quickly. “I don’t want to talk about that, Neal. Whatever happened between you and August is water under the bridge. He doesn’t even hold it against you. But I hate you for that. With every fiber of my being. It was stupid and I shouldn’t have let you…” she trails off, now tears are actually flowing down her face. She can’t wipe them away fast enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Emma, everything I did was for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s true. But of course she doesn’t know that. Couldn’t possibly know the extent of that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. And I wish you hadn’t. If I had known you were going to resent me so badly you had to leave town for a decade… I would have rather you stayed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t resent you,” he sighs. “I love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words hang in the air, both of them very aware that he wasn’t using past tense. He should have been using past tense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal. I have a husband. You have a girlfriend. We have lives we've spent decades building. Go spend Christmas with your family, and then go home. This was a bad idea, I never should have agreed to this!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She storms out, all eyes in the restaurant turning to look back at him, sitting alone and confused in the booth. Not confused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Furious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Taking a deep breath he tries to remind himself why he had come back to Storybrooke in the first place. A man on a mission. No time for memories of Emma Nolan and August Booth and the perfect life that had been ripped out from under his feet a decade ago. Emma was right, he had spent a decade rebuilding, everything had changed that night. Everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now he had something stable again, and he wasn’t going to let Storybrooke destroy that too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he picks up his phone and dials Tamara’s number, waiting patiently for her to pick up. The sound of her smile in her greeting a comfort to him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, babe, everything all right?” she asks and he can hear the sound of the apartment door closing behind her. He can picture her sitting out on the balcony of her apartment, a mug of coffee in her hands as she watches the people pass by in the street below and doesn’t have to worry about this mess of snow they are getting here in Storybrooke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he sighs, knowing it’s true enough. Everything will be alright very soon when he gets to leave this town and go back to her. “Just having a rough day. My dad had me arrested last night. The cop was my ex girlfriend. It was a mess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hopes for something sympathetic, something comforting from her. He needs some sense of normalcy, to remind him that Emma and all that drama are in his past. But her voice is tight when she speaks again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did you do, Neal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing. It was a misunderstanding. Baby, I swear I’m behaving. I miss you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is silent for a long moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, Neal, you just don’t always make the best decisions. I really wish I could have come with you. This stupid case at work, next year we’ll have Christmas together. Just be good. And no more run-ins with ex girlfriends, okay babe?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” he promises, his eyes falling on the empty seat across from him where Emma had just been sitting. Feeling a little better, a little relieved to hear from Tamara. She always did have a way of making his problems seem so insignificant. “Love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hangs up the phone, putting a crumpled twenty on the table as a way of paying their bill and tip, and then turns to leave the diner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sir!” the waitress calls, running after him. “You forgot your hat!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns to see her holding out the red knit cap Emma had been wearing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>What he should have done was say it wasn’t his and leave. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or tell the waitress, who was bound to know Emma in this town, that it was hers instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or just kept walking, without even acknowledging the stupid red hat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What he did instead was thank the waitress profusely, tucking the hat into his coat pocket before looking up directions on his cell phone for August's dad’s workshop. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because like a magnet, he couldn’t stay away from Emma Nolan if he wanted to.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>
    <em>Eleven Summers Ago</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t forget your hat!” Emma laughs as he continues shoving things into the duffel bags Belle and his father bought him to help pack all his things for college. He’s not the most organized packer, and he has no clue what he is going to need in Florida, but he also doesn’t own much and so most of it is just being shoved in one pocket or the next. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where was that?” he asked, looking around the room for anything he might have forgotten. He’s going to the bus stop next week and so he only left out a few things, absolute essentials he might need. His room feels so empty without all his things. And yet so full of life with Emma sitting on the edge of the bed, playfully teasing him with every item he packs away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think it was under the bed,” she says, pointing beneath her and lifting her feet as he drops down to his stomach to wiggle under the box-spring and dig out anything he might have missed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s nothing under here,” he calls out, looking around and squinting into the darkness for another moment before sliding back out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gotcha!” she laughs as her feet wrap around him like a vice, leaving him trapped on his knees in front of her, face pressed against her stomach as her thighs squeeze tightly at his rib cage. It’s a silly trap because nothing in the world would have convinced him to pull away from her. In fact, she might have some difficulty getting rid of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He kisses at her stomach, running a hand up her thigh before leaning back on his heels to look at that beautiful smile, watching him so expectantly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think you could fit in one of these duffel bags?” he jokes, watching her eyes travel over to his luggage as if seriously contemplating the question. She looks a little sad as she shakes her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not if you really need all those clothes,” she says with a shrug, her eyes sad but her smile sincere. He leans forward, pressing a kiss to her temple as he ruffles her hair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think I might,” he admits a little sadly, “I know I look good, but not walk-around-naked good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She grins. But doesn’t contradict him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know,” she begins slowly, “I’m actually kind of jealous. I’ve never left the state. You’re going to see so many cool things down south. Promise you’ll send pictures.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This time next year we should take a vacation,” he says with a half smile, changing the subject slightly. Because he refuses to promise to send pictures. That means admitting that they won’t be together. “You. Me. The two of us. Somewhere warm and sunny. Like Disney. Or the beach. I don’t want to see cool things without you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, okay,” she laughs, running fingers through his hair, gently, but her touch is still intoxicating enough that he tilts his head with the rhythm of her hands, exposing his throat, like a cat asking for more attention. “After that we can go to the moon. Oh! Or we could travel back in time to see dinosaurs!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m serious, Em,” he says, reaching up to push her hair out of her face, letting his hands linger along her jaw line as he holds her gaze. “I know you don’t want to talk about the future, but eventually we have to. At least parts of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, I’m just not ready to let you go,” she whispers, and he feels his heart shatter at the words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t have to,” he suggests. His knees are aching from pressing into the floor, but he doesn’t want to move and ruin the moment. He wants her to know how serious he is about what he has to say. “What if you came with me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To Tallahassee?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To Tallahassee.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal, that’s ridiculous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it? Baby, my housing is already paid for, and it’s not like you had any other plans here. Come with me. Don’t you want to?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks about it for a moment, scooting backward on the bed to cross her legs in front of her, almost as if she is collapsing in on herself. He takes the opportunity to give his knees a break, landing on his ass with a soft thud as he watches her cycle through too many emotions all too quickly for him to address. Eventually she’ll land on one, she always did, and then he can work with that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And then what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean what happens next? I come to Tallahassee, and then what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well… I mean that’s up to you. You could get a job. Or start community college. We’d take beach trips and have movie nights. Maybe get a dog. Eventually a house.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughs darkly with a shake of her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My parents would never agree to that,” she sighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So fuck ‘em,” He says with a shrug. “You’re eighteen. It’s your call.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Except it’s not, Neal. I’ve got no money and no skills to help me make it on my own.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she wouldn’t be on her own. She’d be with him. Not that that was too much different in terms of knowing what they were doing, but it made a world of difference to him. When Emma was around he felt like there was no problem he couldn’t solve. He would be lost without that in Tallahassee.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you want a future with me?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do,” she admits sadly. “But I don’t know how to get there. I don’t know how to go from two high school kids in puppy love to two adults standing on their own. And my parents are never going to agree to me moving halfway across the county for a boyfriend.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is right; the word boyfriend just doesn’t feel like enough anymore. Neal has an inkling of an idea how to get there. He’s always been the planner of the two, less impulsive, slightly more mature. He has an idea, but this just cements it. If ‘boyfriend’ is the problem, well, then it’s one he can easily fix.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So after she leaves that night, back to her own house where the future isn’t fast approaching and she is safe from any of those big questions, Neal finds the courage to knock lightly on his father’s study door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come in,” his dad says, barely looking up from the ledger he is working in and gesturing to one of the leather chairs in front of his desk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal sits, folding his hands in his lap and looking around the little room, as if his clue for what to say next is hidden on the overstuffed bookshelves or behind the paintings on the walls. He had been so confident, standing in the doorway, but now words escape him as he tries to bridge the scariest topic he’s ever brought up to his dad. Scarier than 'I know you're sleeping with my teacher' and 'I'm not sure I'll be a very good big brother'.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is everything all right? You’re awfully quiet tonight,” Rumple asks, closing his accounts book and trying to grab Neal’s attention with eye contact. But Neal is twisting at the cuffs of his sleeves now, playing through every possible outcome. And suddenly his optimism seems to be failing him, because Emma is right. This is a bit ridiculous. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he’s leaving next week. And he wants to take her with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to borrow some money,” he starts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did you do?” his father laughs. “I can give you an advance on your last paycheck from the store, but - “</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need a couple hundred. It’s about Emma. I wanted to ask… I know this sounds crazy… I think it’s the right time… I want to get Emma a ring.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rumple’s face falls, and Neal knew this was a bad idea. He watches as his father opens the top desk drawer and roots around in it for a while, mumbling as he does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not going to lend you money to buy the Nolan girl a ring,” his father finally admits.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pops, I know we're young but-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me finish,” Rumple interrupts, pulling out a navy blue jewelry box and setting it on the desk in front of Neal. “I’m not going to let you buy her a ring when I know your mother would have wanted you to have that one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal looks at the box, a lump forming in his throat as he picks it up and flips the lid with care. It’s a gold ring, a much bigger diamond than anything he could have imagined, the band inlaid with polished amber, the stone surrounded by tiny green emeralds. It’s much better than anything he could have dreamed of offering to Emma.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this… does this mean we have your blessing?” Neal asks, unsure of what is happening. He can’t take his eyes off his mother’s ring. He hasn’t seen it in years - has very few precious memories of her, much less the ring on her hand - but he can feel her adventurous spirit when he holds it. Knows it is exactly the kind of gesture he wants to make for Emma. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His father chuckles, beaming proudly at his little boy who isn’t quite so little anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course. Your mother’s too. She would have loved Emma as much as Belle and I do. Now, times are hard right now with Gideon’s birth and your school, so we can’t afford a wedding, and Lord knows the Nolans won’t be able to chip in, so the two of you might have to be engaged for a while. But I think it’s a lovely gesture, and one in which the timing couldn’t be better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal nods. But he has no intention of being engaged for a while. He and Emma can worry about flowers and veils and cakes when they have more money. But he’s already checked and the courthouse will only charge them one hundred for a marriage license, he can definitely afford that on his last paycheck. Emma is eighteen and he has his father’s permission, he wants to marry her as soon as possible. He wants to be her husband, and she his wife. Wife. He likes that word, full of soft sounds just like Emma’s laugh, short and to the point just like her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” he tells his dad, because no other words seem to convey what he’s feeling right now. Giddy and afraid, nervous and excited. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Son,” his dad offers with a grin as Neal tucks the ring into his pocket. “She’s going to say yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And of course, Neal knows that. But he’s still nervous. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he does what he’s always done when he’s at his most afraid. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He calls his best friend from the landline, pushing himself up onto the kitchen counters and twirling the cord around his fingers while he waits for August to pick up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘Ello?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey!” Neal half shouts, half breathlessly whispers into the phone. “It’s me. I’ve got big news!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, spit it out, Gold!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to ask Emma to marry me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is a long pause at the end of the line, not the eager congratulations Neal had been hoping for. He knows August is happy for him, but he wishes he would hurry up and say it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure that’s the best idea?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, that wasn’t what he was expecting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can practically hear the shrug in his best friend's voice. “You’re young. You haven’t even slept together yet. And her parents are going to be pissed. Emma is their princess, and let’s face it, you don’t have enough money or tact to be a prince.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal laughs, typical cynical August. Always the impulse control to Neal’s wild imagination. But Neal is so sure that he’s right this time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What I lack in money and tact I make up for in charm,” he assures his friend. “Come on dude, I need your support in this. Please, promise me, when Emma and I get married you’ll be the best man. I mean... We’re probably going to go to the courthouse, but we’ll still need a witness and I want it to be you. Promise me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” August hisses into the phone, and Neal is a too busy listening to his words to pick up on the dark tone underneath them. “If there is a wedding, I’ll be your best man.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Neal doesn’t have any trouble finding the Booth house. And all right, part of that is because of the yellow bug in the driveway, but mostly he recognizes it because it is everything he had ever dreamed his house with Emma would have been.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he hates to admit it, but he’s dreamed about that a lot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s painted a nice sky blue, like her eyes, and stands out from all the dull tans and grays the neighborhood seems to be swathed in, nice white trim framing gorgeous bay windows, covered in comfortable pillows and looking like the perfect place for her to read one of her old romance novels she had loved so much. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The whole lot is surrounded by the cliche white picket fence, and though Neal would mock it, he knows he’s always secretly wanted one. Not that he and Tamara could build one around their future New York apartment, he had to remind himself as he parked the car and sat nervously in the driver’s seat, tapping on the steering wheel with the pads of his fingers to a Christmas carol that Belle had been singing as she and Gideon decorated the tree in the entryway this morning. And he really should be there with them right now - because his father wasn’t going to give him that damn ring back until he played nice with his family.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And this trip was supposed to be about the ring. And the woman he wanted to give it to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But as he looked at the bright and cheery Christmas lights hung all around the Booth porch, reflecting tiny rainbows off the snow banks in their front yard, he can’t help but think that him being here is about the woman he wanted to give it to. Or had wanted to. A decade ago, before things got messy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slowly he gets out of the car, careful not to slip on the ice as he opens the little gate and makes his way up the hastily shoveled path. It’s pitiful, clearly done in a hurry, the same way he used to shovel his father’s front path when he was a teenager with places to be. He wonders if it looked so poorly done because Emma had struggled to do it herself with August gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The front porch has holly hung all around the front door, a sign that just reads “The Booths” painted in gingerbread letters hanging in the place of a wreath. It’s cute, and tacky, and colorful, and exactly the kind of decorations he had wanted to pick up from the Dollar Tree before Tamara had insisted on the glittery silver and gold ones. He smiles softly to himself, imagining Emma painting it herself, wishing it said “The Golds” instead. And damn, that hurts so much he almost shoves the little red cap into the mailbox hanging next to the front door and turns to walk back down the path. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because despite what he wants, Emma is married. And Neal would be soon, too. And all these complications were unnecessary on both their parts. That was a decade ago, and he had no right to dig up that life and those choices when he had been the one who killed it. Shot and buried it in the middle of the night before fleeing town in shame. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he doesn’t turn around. Because he might have killed those dreams, but his accomplice seems to have resurrected them and claimed them for himself, and that makes Neal furious. He doesn’t even have the balls to appreciate them, either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knocks on the door, a little too loudly, though the sound is muffled by his gloves and the snow banks surrounding the house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes a moment before Emma gets to the door, opening it wide with a hopeful smile. Until she saw him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slowly, she closes the door just enough to reveal her face in the crack and glares past him down the path.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal, you shouldn’t be here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You forgot your hat,” he offers, holding out the little cap with a hopeful grin. “Listen, I don’t like the way we left things. Can I come in and apologize. I have a lot I need to tell you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she says harshly, offering him no explanation as to why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen, Em, I know it’s selfish, but I promise I’m not doing this because I want another chance. I’m planning to get married next summer, but before I ask her, I want to put whatever we had behind me. And to do that, I need to explain. And apologize.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her face softens as she mulls it over, casting a nervous look behind her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever you’re cooking smells wonderful,” Neal tries, hoping his boyish smile and platonic compliment will be enough to disarm her mistrust. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s sugar cookies,” she mumbles. “Fine. You can explain if it makes you feel better. On the porch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods. Okay. That’s good enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So after I was arrested-” he begins, but is cut off quickly by a cell phone ringing behind her. She stops him mid-sentence with an apologetic look and a nod over her shoulder. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, I have to get that. It might be August,” she says, turning to rush back into the house. He can hear her footsteps echo heavy on the stairs, and so he sways nervously in the cold on the porch, inching closer to the heat radiating from the front door - so warm and inviting. It smells like sugar and pine, and Neal’s stomach growls just thinking about what it might be like to be invited in to share one of those sugar cookies and maybe a fresh pot of coffee. And the warm thoughts of what that might lead to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it’s the wind. He swears, it is the wind that comes along and blows that front door wide open. He didn’t touch it. Wouldn’t touch it. That would be rude.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it opens all on it’s own, and suddenly he’s immersed in Emma’s life, like a ghost wandering through the exact opposite of hell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her voice carries from upstairs, soft and sweet into the phone, the way she always used to talk to him when he was trying his best to be romantic. “I’m sorry honey, but I’m on call until tomorrow. Maybe this weekend we can have Violet over and-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal tunes the sound out, not wanting to eavesdrop if it really is August. Instead he looks around the little hall, covered from top to bottom in Christmas decorations, so full of holiday cheer it just might burst. The furniture is soft, comfortable looking earth tones, the art on the walls quirky and modern. The far wall, clearly part of the living room, has two built in bookshelves on either side, not an inch of wasted space, books spilling over the ledge, small knickknacks and stuffed animals being pushed dangerously close to the edges by books stacked precarious and messy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And in the center is a stone fireplace, where most of that warm, dry heat seems to be coming from as the wood crackles and spits little embers skyward. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it’s the picture hanging above the fireplace that catches Neal’s eye. A family portrait. Of a family.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And suddenly Neal knows why he wasn’t allowed to come inside, too many emotions flooding through him at the sight of Emma done up in her best dress, hair pulled neatly back to show off that long neck he used to kiss and arctic blue eyes lined with enough makeup to really make them pop. Next to her stands August and the years haven't been kind. He looks at least a decade older than Neal and his cheeky grin is nowhere to be seen as he stairs forward at the photographer, warped in a green flannel and an untrimmed beard,  looking completely uncomfortable in both. And then there is the child, front and center.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Neal doesn’t know a lot about genetics, science was never his best subject in school, but he knows that Emma and August both have startling blue eyes, and that little boy in the picture has rich, dark brown ones. And sure, there were lots of explanations for that, but the boy also looked to be about ten years old. Which meant he was probably conceived right around the time Neal left town.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart races as he brings his gloved hands up to his mouth, eyes wide as he tries to make sense of what he is seeing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He swallows, turning to face Emma, now leaning on the stairway railing as she watches him, that same panicked look she always had when her parents caught the two of them in a lie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that my son?” he asks, his voice barley above a whisper as he gestures to the portrait above the fire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she says, biting her lip, and it’s the worst lie she’s ever told. She had once told him that sharks could swim up through the drain in the bathtub, traumatizing little Neal into avoiding showers for a week, and this was the most unbelievable lie he had ever heard leave her lips. This was… this was… something. He wasn’t sure what, but he was mad, and afraid, and heartbroken, and strangely excited. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s my son,” he whispers, not bothering with the question, turning to face her, watching her cheeks flush red as she scrambled to come up with another lie. A better lie. Any lie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It doesn’t matter, because you weren’t here,” she finally hisses, but she doesn’t finish coming down the stairs. Isn’t able to meet his eyes. What he did was bad, but this was worse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You never thought to call me?” he asked. “My dad lives two neighborhoods over. You could have at least told me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me,” she huffs, doing her best to hold onto whatever little anger she is still entitled to. “Anyway, August tried to call you all the time when I was pregnant. He used to get so upset that he couldn’t reach you. He thought you were better than that. We both did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, he did, did he? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Funny, because Neal still had the same phone number from his first cell phone, and yet it hadn't rung once with August Booth's number since that night in the county jail.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where is he?” Neal demands, looking around the house. “I want to speak to August!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told you,” she insists, finally storming down the stairs and squaring her shoulders, an attempt to look taller though she was still quite a few inches shorter than him, “I don’t know where he is. Turns out the two of you were more alike than I ever could have predicted. Now get out of my house before my son gets home from school.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or what, you’ll arrest me? Again?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t push me, Gold. The moment you stepped across that threshold you were trespassing. So we can do this the easy way - you can remember that at one point in time you respected me and my wishes and stay true to that - or we can do this the hard way and you can call your daddy from a jail cell for the second time in two days.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This isn’t over,” he assures her, turning to take one last look at the little boy smiling in the picture, before setting her hat down gentle on the entryway table and heading back outside in the bracing cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he meant it. It wasn’t over. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he honestly didn’t blame Emma. Not one bit. Not after what he’d put her though, not after whatever lies August had told her about him. He kept repeating it to himself, his entire walk to his car: Can’t blame Emma. Because if he didn’t he was bound to turn around and storm right back up that front porch to give her a piece of his mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, he had to be smarter about this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He needed to go home, talk to his dad about the ring for Tamara and the grandson that Rumple undoubtedly already knew about. He needed to call his lawyer girlfriend and ask her just what she knew about custody cases and what his rights were in this situation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he’d be ready to talk to Emma again. Calmer. Rationally.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, and after that, he was going to hunt down August Booth, wherever he might be, and brutally beat the ever-loving shit out of him. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Eleven Summers Ago</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal was trying really hard to be smart about this. After all, if everything went as planned, he was only going to do this once. So he had to get everything just right. And for once, his overactive imagination was a major hindrance. Because he had too many ideas.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ring on the dessert plate. Treasure hunt. Movie marathon at the drive-in. Beach trip. Surprise party. The possibilities were endless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His original plan had been to drive her a couple towns over to the carnival where they had their first date. It had been the best night of Neal’s life, and so he had planned to recreate it. Riding rickety rides, eating fair food, and sipping at lemonade as they laughed about all the memories they’d made over the last three years together. He had thought about taking her hand on the swings as they flew high above the ground, pulling her against his side as the roller coasters zipped up and over small bends, buying her an ice cream which she would inevitably get all over her face because Emma was not a very neat ice cream eater. He would wait until the end of the night, when they reached the top of the Ferris Wheel and she would turn to laugh and try and find the highway exit that would take them back to Storybrooke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that was where he would ask her.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“There’s the road!” she would say with glee. “There’s our way home!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And he would tell her that she was his home. That she was what made Storybrooke so special. That it would never feel like home without her. He would tell her he wanted to create a new home, just the two of them in Tallahassee. That he knew they could do anything, as long as they were together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he would pull out his mother’s ring - and that’s where his imagination went haywire. Because despite his father’s reassurance, and the fact that Neal knew Emma loved him, he still couldn’t imagine her saying yes. It was just too crazy of an idea. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that plan had fallen apart anyway, the moment he had called August and asked to borrow the car. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No way, you think I don’t know what you’re going to do in my car after she says yes?” August had practically growled into the phone. “Ruin someone else’s leather interior.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Neal had gone back to the drawing board. Tried to think of other places that might be important, other plans that would still be just as perfect.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, he set up a picnic out in the woods by the old wishing well. He made sure to get Emma’s favorite flowers, sunflowers - bright and cheerful like herself, and bought them hamburgers with onion rings and chocolate milkshakes from Granny’s Diner. He even set up candles, the little plastic ones with batteries in the bottom, to twinkle in the evening light until the fireflies could come out and create a more romantic ambiance. It wasn’t prefect, but it was them, and so he was pretty happy with it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thought for sure she would know what was going on when they walked into the little clearing, her dropping his hand to clasp both of hers over her mouth with a squeal of glee - but it had just turned out she was excited about the onion rings. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so they sat and ate their dinner, and Neal tried not to die of a heart attack as he forced food down his dry throat and tried to find the courage for the speech he had prepared and then promptly forgotten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because when he was looking into her blue eyes, he forgot a lot of things. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you keep looking at me like that, do I have something on my face?” she finally asked, crumpling up the greasy hamburger wrapper and tossing it into the bag at the edge of the picnic blanket. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, you’re just really beautiful tonight,” he tries, lamely, wiping his hands on his jeans to try and hide his sweaty palms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you want?” she laughs with a raised eyebrow, but she’s not mad, just playful. And he loves that about her. He loves the way everything is a game to Emma, no stress. He loves the way she gives him a hard time for being a little awkward and annoying at times. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing. Well. Something. I wanted to ask you something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her brow furrows as she continues to sip on her milkshake, shifting her posture to face him on the picnic blanket as Neal tries to find the next words to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay. Ask.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I love you. A lot. Damn it, wait, I had something better prepared, let me think.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughs, “Spit it out Neal, I’m not going to bite.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods, knowing it’s true. Because she’s going to say yes. And so it is going to be alright. And so his fancy speech is completely unnecessary. All he needs to do is tell Emma how he feels and everything will be alright. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s about Tallahassee,” he starts again, reaching his hand into his pocket for the ring. “About you, and me. About us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He continues to stutter as he searches, switching his hand to his other pocket. Now Emma is looking at him confused, a little worried even, and she should be, because he is such an idiot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He forgot the damn ring!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He runs through his day again, setting up the blanket, picking up their dinner. He had it at the florist when he went to buy the sunflowers, left it at home when he went to the hardware store for the candles… He had thought he’d remembered to put it back in his pocket before he’d gone to pick Emma up - but the damn thing was still sitting on his dresser at home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And while he might be able to forgive himself a lot of compromises on the dream proposal, he couldn’t ask Emma to marry him without the ring! He wouldn’t blame her for saying no to that, who wanted to marry the idiot that left his mother’s engagement ring at home the night he was planning to propose!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal,” she whispers, leaning in to put her hands on either side of his jaw, looking him in the eye and steadying his breathing just a little bit. “I think I know what you’re trying to ask.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shit! She was going to guess, and then what was he supposed to do? Lie? Just go for it, tell her the ring was at home? Fuck, this was not how this was supposed to go, and really, maybe he should just try again next weekend - ask his dad for the car to take her to the fair like he'd originally planned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do?” he swallows hard, his heart pounding in his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s kinda obvious,” she says with a small smile, nodding over her shoulder. “And very sweet. For the record, I didn’t expect flowers. Or all this fuss.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t? What was she expecting?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She leans in, kissing him a little longer than he had been expecting, and as he relaxes against her, let’s her push him back until his shoulder blades are pressed against the ground and she is resting all her weight on his chest, he realizes exactly what she thinks is going on here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And while that hadn’t been his plan… it’s a nice diversion, and not exactly something he’s opposed to either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So for a time, he lets himself forget about the ring. And their melting milkshakes. And the flicking candles that cast harsh shadows across her soft features. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He let’s himself submit to her as she shifts her weight, straddling his lap and tugging at the hem of his shirt with a smug smile. And it’s probably better this way anyway. He’ll probably be less nervous the next time he goes to propose, after this is out of the way. And thank God, she’s willing to lead, cause he’s already made enough mistakes tonight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And for her part, Emma doesn’t seem nervous at all. She is brash and bold and beautiful like always, and though she sees his discomfort, she pushes past it for the both of them, kissing at his neck as he fumbles with the button on her jeans.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The humidity of the summer air presses around them like a blanket as they shed more and more articles of clothing, fireflies and stars joining the flickering candles as shadows dance around the little clearing - shifting as the two of them move together as one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And just like a summer night, it is not nearly long enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They lay together after, wrapped in the picnic blanket and panting for breath, pressed together despite the discomfort of the summer heat causing their skin to stick together, sweat beading down Neal’s spine as Emma traces small hearts above his with her fingernail.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He is speechless, because what do you say after a moment like that?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” he finally mumbles, brushing her hair away from her face to press a kiss against her forehead, “Next time I’ll-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she cuts him off with a roar of laughter, hugging him tighter as she buries her face in his shoulder. “Shut up, Gold. That was amazing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No it wasn’t,” he laughs as he continues to play with her hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine, it wasn’t bad,” she concedes, nipping at his neck, “We just need some more practice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal doesn’t think he can handle her with any more practice. As it was, he had had a hard time… keeping up. Even now, feeling her curves wiggle against his side, the steady thumping of her pulse pressed against him… he’s not entirely sure he’ll be able to think about anything but her for the rest of his life. And damn does he wish he had that ring now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know,” she whispers, contemplative, “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About the future.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?” he asks, trying to keep calm. He had, too. But he couldn’t tell her that until he had a chance to go home and get that ring.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. About Tallahassee. About me coming with you. Is that what you really want?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yes. And more. But he settles for a simpler answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What I really want is you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And though she tries to hide it, because Emma isn’t one for wearing her heart on her sleeve, he can feel the quick curve of her grin against his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All right then. Let's go to Tallahassee.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I’ll talk to my parents about it tomorrow. After that we can start figuring out the details. I know it’s short notice, but I want to go with you. If you want me there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course I do, baby,” he assures her, leaning over to grab his t-shirt so the two of them can start redressing - the night is growing an inky black and people will start to wonder where they are if they’re gone much later. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You promise?” she asks as she sits up and tugs her own t-shirt down over her taut stomach, and for a moment the light catches her just right and Neal can’t think of anything else but pulling that shirt back off and getting lost in her body once more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Promise?” he stutters, struggling to string words together as she stands and bends over to pick up the rest of her clothes, and the moonlight catches her pale skin just right. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, promise you won’t leave Storybrooke without me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I promise I won’t go to Tallahassee without you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And both of them are too in love to realize that those two promises were not exactly the same thing. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Neal’s broken a lot of things in his twenty-eight years. He’s broken beer bottles at work in the dive bar where he accumulates tips to pay for his apartment. He’s broken skin and bones being less than careful after drinking a few of those same beers. He’s broken lease agreements with stupid DIY projects, car parts trying to help Tamara fix what they should have called a mechanic for, and countless phone screens that he still refused to buy protective cases for. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When it came to Emma, he had also broken a very big promise. And her heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the glass case in his father’s pawn shop was probably the easiest thing he’d broken in a long time. And satisfying, too. Sure, he was going to have to pay his dad to replace it, that was a given, but with so many new and unfamiliar emotions bubbling up inside him, it had felt really good to pick up the lamp from next to his dad’s cash register and bring it down with all his might, watching the shards splinter and shatter out like snowflakes falling from the sky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course, had he been thinking a little more clearly, he would have stopped to make sure that damn ring was actually in the case before breaking it beyond repair. Yep, a smarter man would have looked into the clear glass case and seen, without a doubt, that Milah’s ring was nowhere to be seen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Neal wasn’t thinking clearly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, rage and guilt and something else he couldn’t name bubbling over like a pot set to boil, bringing his fists down on either side of the case so hard that the whole thing rattled, sending little pieces of glass tinkling down to the floor around his heavy winter boots.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Double fuck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He picked his fist up carefully, the sharp sting in the meat of his hand not entirely unpleasant, as he looked at the piece of glass sticking out from under the loose knit of his gloves, now beginning to shift from it’s usual navy blue to a darker shade of purple as crimson blood seeped into the cloth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a resigned sigh, and something much more practical to focus on, Neal turned to retrieve the little first aid kit from his father’s back office, still tucked away where it had been a decade ago. He swears he almost sees a cloud of dust explode as he sets it on his dad’s desk and opens the lid - probably not getting much use now that his clumsy ass had left the shop. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finds a small pair of scissors to cut the glove off his injured hand, pulling the other one off his good hand with his teeth so that his movements wouldn’t be slowed as he picked the piece of glass out of his palm with a pair of tweezers. And the glass was no small piece, either. As he tosses it into the trash bin, blood wells up to fill the space left behind and Neal has to hurry and wrap it with as much gauze as he can to keep it from spilling all over his dad’s paperwork. Were he a more poetic man, he might have compared the gaping wound now full of dark blood to the space left in his heart when he'd left town - and how quickly it had filled with bitterness and bad choices. Good thing he wasn't in a mood to be that sentimental.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What a mess. He’d come back to Storybrooke and in less than forty-eight hours he’d made quite the mess. From his near arrest last night to upsetting Emma this morning, the broken glass case, and the blood staining the fresh bandage he pulls tight over his hand and clamps shut with butterfly clips, he’s done nothing but make a mess.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been a simple plan: spend Christmas with his family, pick up his mother’s ring, head back to Tamara and ask her to marry him. But now, here he sat with an aching hand and some serious doubts about his commitment to Tamara, and nothing seemed so simple anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, because reality has come crashing back in and he knows he needs to calm down, he goes and fetches the broom out of his dad’s cabinet and begins to sweep up the glass in the front of the store. Resigned, he knows what he needs to do. What he should have done to begin with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal sets the blank check down on his dad’s desk, trying not to blush as his father’s eyes travel to his injured hand - no need for an explanation. Belle’s Christmas music is still wafting out from the living room. She and Gideon have gone out to make snow angels, and Rumple is using that time to wrap their Christmas presents in his study near the back of the house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Much like his father, each gift is neat and presentable. The corners tucked delicately, the wrapping smooth - nothing like the rushed newspaper jobs Neal had become accustomed to doing for his coworkers over the last couple years. Neal is surprised to see his own pile of gifts -  equal in size to Gideon’s - delicate bows glittering as his father finishes curling the ribbon with a pair of scissors. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should have just told you why I was here,” Neal mumbles, sinking down into one of the comfortable chairs across from his dad. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” his dad corrected, “You should tell me why this is the first year you’ve felt the need to come back. I already know why you’re here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted mom’s ring. I want to ask my girlfriend to marry me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I figured as much,” Rumple sighs. “But that’s not what I was asking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal knows exactly what he was asking. Because Emma’s isn’t the only heart Neal broke that night, when he’d grabbed his bag and left a note taped to his door. But that’s just too painful to explain, and so he tries another topic, one only tangentially related.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you know about… my… Emma’s…?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Henry?” his father asks, and the name is like music to Neal. No longer some hypothetical child in a photograph. He has a name. Is a real person. And for the first time, with a sinking feeling, Neal realizes Emma was right. He is not entitled to Henry’s time just because of genetics - he shouldn’t be interrupting any lives unless he is willing to interrupt his first. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal nods slowly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, I knew. Well, I suspected. He’s too smart a child to be August Booth’s boy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal laughs, the first shared moment of mirth he’s had with his father this whole trip, and it aches because of just how much he has missed it. They used to laugh all the time when he was younger. Before everything had gone rotten and Neal had stopped picking up phone calls because he was tired of being yelled at. Before Rumple had turned cold because the only other option was to hurt. Once upon a time, they had enjoyed each other's company. Between the years of Milah and Belle - nine years, almost an eternity to a small child - Rumple and Neal had been closer than any other family in Storybrooke. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know, I think that’s almost a compliment,” he jokes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, no, I was saying he takes after his grandfather. Intelligence, it would seem, skips a generation,” Rumple grins, putting down the scissors and his last wrapped present to lean in close to his son. “So what are you going to do? Now that you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think I’m going to call Tamara, ask for some legal advice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is the only plan Neal can really think of. And so he stands to leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But his father calls him back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns to see his dad digging in the top drawer of his desk, rummaging in the most undignified of ways. It is only after a long moment, when his dad sits a navy blue box on top of the desk, that Neal realizes what he is doing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were right,” his dad says, shoving it across the desk. “I did give it to you ten years ago. And though I don’t exactly approve of the way in which you want to use it now, I’m sure your mother would haunt me forever if she knew I was keeping it from you. It is yours, always has been. Use it wisely though, son, it was, after all, your mother’s.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal nods, taking it in his injured hand and tucking it away in his pocket.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s what he came for. He can go home now if he wants. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or he can spend Christmas with his family.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He has to call Tamara three times before she picks up, sounding annoyed and a little out of breath. Normally he wouldn’t have bothered her after the first missed call, but his Google searches on the matter are not turning up enough information and he needs someone to explain all the legal words to him so he better understands what is reasonable to ask Emma for. And what is not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And because this is a big thing, a very big thing, and so if he does plan on keeping Tamara in his life, he is hoping for her approval in his endeavors. He can’t quite picture her as a mother, she lacks the warmth and patience for it, but until a couple hours ago he would have said he couldn’t see himself as a father, either. Still, it is nice to imagine taking Henry for pizza by the park, asking questions about the childhood he missed, and Neal supposes it would be nice if Tamara is there too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now isn’t really a great time,” she insists into the phone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Love you too, baby,” he chuckles, sinking down onto the guest bed in Belle’s craft room, staring at the wall where his band poster used to hang, now a cross-stitched family tree with him and Gideon at the bottom and a few more inches saved for future generations.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henry, he thinks, rolling the name around in his mind like a toy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m serious, Neal,” she insists. “We already talked this morning, has something else changed?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A lot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. I need some advice, too. Legal advice. Are you sitting down?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get to the point?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he opens his mouth to begin, ready to tell her all about this complicated situation - beg her to take a few days off and help him come sort through this mess - tell her that he needs her right now, when he realizes there is a steady static noise in the background.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you outside?” he asks, hearing her sigh, annoyed into the background noise. “No, it’s just there is something - like a… is it raining?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, babe, it’s nothing. Probably just the radio I’ve got on,” he hears her say, her voice tight. But the humming stops. Like rain. Only it could be turned off. Like a shower.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is there someone there?” Neal asks skeptically, and this time before she can assure him everything is fine he hears a man’s voice calling to her and she is shushing whoever it is quickly. But not before Neal hears the other man call her “sweetheart” and his stomach flips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just a friend,” she assures him, but Neal knows it’s a lie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You had a work thing, huh?” he asks, his voice dry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal, you’re being irrational,” she says, that calm lawyer voice that can normally convince him of anything. But Neal’s been lied to enough by people he trusted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so he’s only half thinking of her when he whispers back, “Go to hell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Baby,” she insists, “It’s nothing. You’ll see when you come home-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not coming home, this is over,” he whispers, and he knows it has been for a while. Possibly even before he met her. Because he’s never loved like he did on that warm summer night by the old wishing well, and how could he ever marry someone that he loved even an ounce less than that? “I mean, I’ll be by to pick up my stuff… but yeah. I’ve got bigger problems than a cheating girlfriend right now. So this is over. Merry Christmas.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And before she can protest further he hangs up the phone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes drifting back over to the little blue box he had set on top of his suitcase, glaring at him like he’d lied to it too.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <b>Eleven Summers Ago</b>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal is sitting on the edge of his bed, turning the little blue ring box around in his hands, thinking through just the right words to say, when his phone rings. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The soft, crushed velvet feels nice against his palms, the sparkling ring inside a haunting reminder of a mother he didn’t really know, and an overwhelming push toward a future he also couldn’t be sure of. But, an uncertain future with Emma was far better than any path he could take without her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>However, that phone call ends all those thoughts. Temporarily, the Neal of the present thinks. Permanently, the Neal of the future will later reflect. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is Emma and she is crying and panicked and not making any sense on the other side of that phone line, words slipping in and out of context as he tries to grasp what has upset her so badly, his mind already racing with possible solutions to the fragments of thoughts he can manage to catch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Slow down, baby, I can’t understand you,” he says, trying to keep his voice calm, though it is hard when the bravest person he knows is falling apart on the other end of the line.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you come downstairs?” she finally manages to choke out, a coherent thought and one he would gladly comply with. “Bring your stuff.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s an odd request, and so he leaves his suitcases stacked by the door, remembering only to bring his house keys - his phone and the ring box forgotten on his dresser - as he takes the stairs two at a time, rushing out to climb into the passenger seat of August’s yellow Bug - too worried about Emma to question a lot of the obvious red flags. Because when you’re young and in love, viewing the world through a pair of rose-tinted glasses, red flags just look like any other kind of flag.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He is barely buckled in before Emma is pulling out of the driveway, her face set in stone, dried tear tracks lined with running mascara mar her cheeks with a reminder of the near panic she had just been in. And she probably shouldn’t be driving. But her eyes stare ahead as she steers the car onto the back roads, locked onto the road like their lives depend on it. And Neal is really hesitant to bring it up, knows that it is dangerous for her to be so emotional behind the wheel, but her silence is almost as concerning as her panic, and so he sets his hand gently on her knee.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Emma, want to tell me what’s going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it’s then, as they round another twist in the road, passing underneath a street lamp as they head away from the town, that all that light begins to bring those red flags to life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is not Emma’s car. And though August has always been more than happy to lend it to Neal - even giving him a spare key for emergencies - he is never eager to lend it to anyone else. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” he grumbles, as the shattered driver’s side window and the exposed wires under the dash finally catch up to him, “Emma, if you wanted to go for a drive, you should have just asked me for the key.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You would have said no,” she says firmly, biting her lip so hard Neal thinks he sees blood. But maybe it is just that too-bright red lipstick she has always loved, staining her teeth the same way it colors everything else in his life that it touches.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pull over so we can talk?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There isn’t time. Tallahassee is still a really long way away and I’d really like to be halfway there when my dad finds my note.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighs again, turning around to see her backpack and a few other things piled in the backseat. “Emma, pull over.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She finally relents, steering the car over to the shoulder of the road, shrouded in shadows where they can have their moment alone, safe from prying eyes and potential car crashes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a tad creepy to Neal, calling forward so many of the ghost stories he and August had always shared around the campfire - two teens stranded on the highway, tree branches swaying as the shadows danced around them - nothing but a broken car window and their own naive confidence keeping them from approaching danger. But right now, the danger isn’t outside the car, it’s inside and he has to puzzle this together now before this situation gets any worse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are we running away?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she’s crying again. Loud, wet sobs as she grabs onto his shoulder, soaking his shirt as the words fail to add up again, and the only thing he can pick out are “parents'' and “no.” Finally, after several minutes of him stroking her hair and whispering nonsensical comforts into her ear, she calms herself enough to string the words into a sentence he can latch onto.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told my parents I was going to Florida with you and they said no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Emma, stop, it’s okay. Really, stop crying, it’s fine. Who cares if your parents don’t want you going to Tallahassee? You’re eighteen, you don’t have to listen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shakes her head sniffling as she wipes at her eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re sending me away, Neal. They've got the plane ticket and everything. They want me to go stay with my aunt for a while in Canada. Have this whole future planned out. And you’re not in it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They can’t make you,” he assures her, squeezing her shoulders tight. “I know it sucks but-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They can, Neal. My dad’s a cop and my mom - well you just don’t know. They’re my parents and if I don't leave town now I’m going to end up in Canada, far away from you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laughs, wiping a few of her tears away for her, straining his eyes to see the details of her face in the shadowy darkness of the car. “Baby, you aren't thinking straight. No one is making you get on a plane you don’t want to be on - cop for a dad or not. Let’s head back to town. We’ll bring August’s car back and apologize for the window.” - he’ll probably have to pay to fix it, and there goes that hundred for the marriage license, but it’s not the end of the world - “Then when it’s a reasonable hour and you’re feeling a little calmer, we’ll go talk to your parents. Together. It’s you and me, baby. Together. You don’t have to worry about this alone. But you can’t just go stealing my friend’s car and hightailing it a couple states away without even giving me a chance to say goodbye to my folks? Okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods, sniffling a little as she smiles softly at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what came over me,” she offers with a shake of her head and then a wobbly, nervous laugh. “You’re right, of course you’re right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to stay at my dad’s place tonight? He can probably call your parents if you’re still feeling-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Neal never gets to finish his question, instead cut off by the sound of wailing sirens, flashing red and blue lights illuminating the darkened road where they sit parked. Painting the inside of the car with panic, garishly bright and unexpectedly shrill.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And for a brief second of blinding optimism, Neal hopes that the police car - lights and sound and overwhelming claustrophobia - will just keep hurtling right past them to some other dire emergency.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there is no such luck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cop car begins to slow as it pulls up behind them and optimism is replaced by dread now flooding through the minds of the two teens sitting parked on the side of the road.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In a stolen car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it’s obvious the car is stolen. In her panicked haste, Emma had completely shattered the driver’s side window. And the wires she had used to start the car still protrude from under the dash, frayed and colorful, like the ends of an old sweater. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Switch seats with me,” Neal hurries, unbuckling his seat belt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because there is a good chance he can clear all this up. It is his friend’s car, after all, and if he calls August, maybe he can convince him to lie to the cop. To say he let Neal borrow it, and then Neal will just owe him a very big favor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Failing that - Neal knows enough about the law to know that Emma can’t be sitting in the driver’s seat when the cop arrives at that window. She is eighteen, and there is a huge difference between the community service and slap on the wrist he will get for stealing a car at seventeen, and the major jail time that comes with larceny if charged as an adult.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she just sits, eyes wide in fear, unanswering to his simple command.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Switch seats with me,” he hisses again, this time reaching over and unbuckling her seat belt, practically shoving her into the passenger seat as he climbs over the center console and gets situated, just as the office arrives in their field of vision.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He raises his hand, ready to knock on the car window, and then pauses with a skeptical look at Neal as they both notice there is no glass to knock on. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What seems to be the problem here officer?” Neal asks, his smile way too forced to be believable, his hands trembling in his lap. This is a mistake. It’s an easy one to clear up. It’s going to be okay. He just has to keep telling himself that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They both exchange another look - the officer with an eyebrow raised that seemed to ask the simple question of “really?” and Neal, with his biggest grin, pretending that he had no clue what this could possibly be about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Step out of the vehicle,” the officer mumbles, not bothering to engage Neal’s inquiry. Emma opens her mouth in his defense, but Neal shushes her quickly. He can’t have her taking this bullet. They can still go to Tallahassee if he’s charged as a minor. They can still make it home. Worst case scenario, he has to postpone his fall semester, but he’ll still have her and their future if he takes this fall. They’ll have nothing if she accidentally shoulders the blame.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that going to be necessary?” Neal tries, “See, this is my friend’s car - he, ugh, he’s letting me borrow it. I know the window looks doesn't look good - we broke it last weekend playing baseball - but really, it’s not as bad as it looks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The officer looks skeptical, checking the notepad in his hand for details Neal would really like to see. “Why don’t you get your friend on the phone then, son.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal reaches into his pocket for his phone - remembers that in his rush to get to Emma he left it on his dresser. He has really got to stop doing that!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry… I don’t…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Step out of the car.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so reluctantly Neal obeys, listening as the officer reads him his rights. Asks him to turn around and place his hands behind his back. Puts handcuffs around Neal’s wrists.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All the while Emma is crying and pleading from the passenger seat and Neal really just hopes she will stop so she doesn’t make this any worse for either of them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Baby,” he says, getting her attention as he leans back into the smashed window. “This is going to be okay. It’s just a misunderstanding. Call August and have him meet me at the jail. We’ll get this cleared up. And whatever you do, don't talk to anyone but August.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods, watching as Neal is led away, the officer’s hand resting gently on the back of his head as he is lowered to the backseat of the cop car and driven away from his girlfriend and their stolen car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Away from Emma.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Away from Tallahassee.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Away from their future together.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Neal feels a little guilty as Belle and Gideon watch him load his things into the back of Tamara’s SUV. It didn’t help that Belle had insisted he at least take his Christmas gifts with him so that he had something to open on Christmas. Or that Gideon was biting his lip and trying not to cry. But ten years ago, he had left his family for all the wrong reasons; now he was confident he was doing it for the right ones.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal, sweetie,” Belle mumbles, holding on a little too long as she goes to hug him goodbye, “Are you sure you don’t want to stay just a few more days. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and Gideon was really looking forward to showing you some of our traditions. You don’t know when we’ll get another chance like this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that hurts, because he knows what she means.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be back next year,” he promises her before turning to his little brother. “And you’re right, little man, I can’t wait another ten years to get to know my little brother. How about spring break you come stay with me in New York? Huh? We can get pizza, see the sights, I think you’d really like it there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Gideon’s smile is hopeful, but Belle’s is doubtful. And though he knows he deserves it, it still stings a little.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please drive safely, and call us when you get there,” she offers, putting both hands on his brother’s shoulders to steer the little boy back into the house so that they don’t have to watch him drive away. Just like last time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But as Neal climbs into the driver’s seat, checks his mirrors, and puts the car in reverse, he is stopped by his father arriving home early from work, pulling his car into the driveway behind Neal, despite the warning red lights to get out of the way. And so Neal has to slam on his breaks, put the car back in park, and get out to glare at his dad who is standing unmoving next to his own car, his head tilted ever so slightly to the side. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, pops,” Neal sighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is a soft crunching noise as Rumple walks through the packed snow, his cane leaving little indents behind like the tracks of some strange animal. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to get out of the driveway,” Neal insists as his dad stops in front of him - older and more frail than Neal remembers him being. No longer the stern and loving authority figure of Neal's childhood, but now a man in his sixties, starting to worry about time and legacies, and it startles Neal to think of his father as fragile. Startles him to notice the excess of grey in hair that had previously been the same color as his own. Startles him to see the arthritic fingers gripping at the cane his dad had always needed. Startles him to notice, that while Neal had always been a tad on the short side, he now had a few inches over his father. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Time was passing; and Neal has carelessly wasted ten years of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where do you think you’re going?” his dad hisses, though Neal is sure he already knows the answer, positive his dad wouldn’t be here if Belle hadn’t already called and filled him in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dad, I have stuff I need to take care of in the city-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your girlfriend will still be cheating on you after Christmas,” his dad huffs, and though it is a callous remark, it is not incorrect. And while Neal expects to feel anger at his father for bringing up something so painful, expects to feel a fresh wave of tears over Tamara’s betrayal, he just feels kind of empty. Like there hadn’t been enough there to begin with to mourn it now. Which was worrisome, considering how much he had convinced himself he wanted to marry Tamara, but he had been wrong before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to get my stuff, return her car,” he says with a sigh, “It would be wrong for me to dump her and then keep the car for a week.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Correct me if I’m mistaken, but it was wrong for her to wait until you went out of town for the first time in ten years to invite her other boyfriend over,” Rumple says, still unmoving, though the winter chill is starting to cause them both to shiver and long for a warmer place to have this conversation. But both men know if they give an inch the other will take miles and miles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It wasn’t the timing that bothered me,” Neal mumbles, his teeth starting to chatter a bit, the hems of his jeans wet with melted snow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Both share a sad smile at the kind of joke that used to feel comfortable between them. And it is Rumple who compromises first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stay for Christmas. After that I’ll close the shop for a few days. Go back to the city with you and help you get your things. You shouldn’t have to do that alone, son.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why not?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal had spent the last ten years doing everything alone - in fact, that was part of why he had latched onto Tamara so quickly, desperate to be part of something again. Desperate to feel like his penance for what he’d done to Emma had been paid. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s just going to be a few boxes, some clothes, a book or two, nothing really big-” Neal begins to try to explain to his father, hopeful to dissuade him fro making the trek. Neal doesn’t have the room for his father to stay with him - doesn’t want his dad to see the dingy bar where he works or the cheap apartment he rents. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal,” his dad interrupts, placing a hand softly on his shoulder as he searches for something meaningful in his boy’s eyes - a trace of the child who had loved wildly and hoped for the best in some of the worst times. A boy who had overcome the death of his mother at such a young age, had accepted Belle and then Gideon into their little family without question, who had once feared disappointing his father more than anything. And Rumple knows that boy is still there, lost somewhere inside the man in front of him. That shell of a man that Neal has built all by himself to protect the poor, aching boy when life had finally thrown something at him that he couldn’t handle. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pop, things are a mess here. And it’s my fault. I need to leave them be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Son,” his dad says with a shake of his head, “You came here this Christmas to give your mother’s ring to the woman you wanted to marry. I don’t see why you can’t still do that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I don’t still want to marry her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wasn’t talking about Tamara.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal shakes his head in disbelief. “No. That would be crazy. She’s married. And doesn’t want to see me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She doesn’t want to see this,” his dad says, gesturing at the man in front of him. “She doesn’t want to see the Neal that no longer believes in happy endings. But I’d be willing to bet money that the only person Emma Nolan has ever wanted to see, at all, in the last ten years is the boy who loved her so much he gave up a great deal to keep her safe. I’m sure she’s made up lots of stories about why you left. It’s time to give her the real one. And the ring.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t know what happened pop,” Neal mumbles, thinking about that night. How he had been trying to keep her safe. How every bad decision he had made in the last decade had Emma’s best interest at it’s core. Emma’s best interest and the threat of her now-husband. “It’s not the kind of thing she’s going to understand.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or maybe you’re just sacred. Maybe you don’t want to admit that she might understand. Maybe you don’t want to apologize so you keep telling yourself that she wouldn’t accept it. When your mother died, there was a lot left unsaid between the two of us. Don’t let that happen to you. Give her the ring.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t just give mom’s ring to Emma. Not after ten years apart. Not when she’s married…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not saying ask her to marry you. I’m saying, is there really anyone else you want to have that ring?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And no, there really wasn’t. He had come here to get it for Tamara, but unlike the last time he had no clue what he was going to say. No plans for how he was going to ask her. No candle-lit wishing wells and favorite meal, no trip to the fair, no long list of possibilities. He had come here looking for that ring, and his thoughts had ended with it, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because his dad was right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was Emma’s ring. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It always had been.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about Henry?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You mean the boy who has suffered through ten years of August Booth as a father? I say end his misery, but that’s just me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And hell,” his dad offers, “She doesn’t like your explanation? She tells you to get out again? She throws that ring right back at you? At least you will have tried and you can come back here and the two of us will get blind stinking drunk on eggnog and Belle and Gideon will fuss over you like a wounded puppy and it’ll still be better than Christmas alone in New York.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine, move the car and I’ll go,” Neal concedes, his heart racing at the thought of telling Emma the truth. After all these years, of letting her know what happened that night in the county jail. Why the last time she ever saw him was when he was being led away by by that cop on the side of the road. Why he hadn’t bothered to show up for sentencing, or gone off to college, or taken her with him. He knows that nothing bad can come from it now, long after the statue of limitations has expired, but the idea still fills him with dread. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because what if she doesn’t understand? What if she tells him he is a fool - and she wouldn’t be wrong - for what he did all those years ago?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No. Better to take the coward’s way out. His things are already in Tamara’s car. As soon as his dad moves he can drive down the block, take a turn before he gets to Emma’s neighborhood. Be back on the highway to the city before his dad even realizes what he’s done. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But his dad, always ten steps ahead and above him - save for the one night where he wasn't and the world fell apart - presses a set of cold keys into Neal’s palm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, you’ll take my car. Can’t run off with that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Damn, his dad knows him too well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even after a decade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And, Neal thinks a little sadly, he’d really like to know his son, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even after a decade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So it is with shaking hands that he pulls his car into the Booth driveway, working up the courage to get out and knock on that door, just like he had done yesterday with so much undeserved confidence. He is worried, the little yellow Bug missing from the driveway. Probably taking their son - her son, he had to correct himself - to school.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So when that car pulls back up, Neal jumps out of his own, so eager to see her that he can’t restrain himself from opening her door. It was an action full of chivalry in their youth, probably a little presumptuous now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Emma, thank God you’re here, we really need to talk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, thank God I’m at my own house,” she says with a roll of her eyes, stepping around him as she fumbles with the keys. “If this is about Henry-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not - not directly at least,” he assures her. “Please, let me come in and explain. If you don’t like what I have to say, I’ll leave. You’ll never hear from me again. I promise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t have the best track record with promises,” she mumbles as he continues to follow her up the front steps, watching impatiently as she unlocks the front door and the warm smell still leftover from breakfast pours out around her. “Fine, come in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes a deep breath as he steps over the threshold, his mother’s ring in his pocket and an explanation ready on his tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But when she beckons for him to sit down in an overstuffed armchair, pouring two mugs of coffee for the both of them, it is an apology that spills out instead.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Eleven Summers Ago</b>
</p><p>
  <span>“August, thank God, you’re here!” Neal practically shouts through the bars of the little county jail. They had asked him a million times if he wanted to call his dad, assured him that the ‘one phone call’ thing was just a myth, but Neal had refused. He’d really rather get this all cleared up before his dad got involved. So he used his one phone call to leave a message for August, fairly confident that Emma would continue to call. All he had to do was wait.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so he had sat and waited, for an hour or two, his palms sweaty and red from pressing them against the warm metal bench in the station - their AC was broken and so the whole place felt somewhat akin to hell. The stink of the drunks in the holding cell with him, the desperate moans from a woman who looked sick in the cell next to theirs, adding to the feeling of hellish torture - Neal’s own nerves acting as his very own personal punishment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now, with sweat soaking through his t-shirt, messy curls sticking to his forehead, he doesn’t notice any of that because his best friend is here to clean up the mess. Because August always gets him out of the trouble they’re in. Why would tonight be any different?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Neal rushes forward, wrapping his fingers around the metal bars of the holding cell, pressing his face as close to freedom as he can get it and whispering to his friend, “You’ve got to help me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>August shrugs, calm as ever, because of course he isn’t worried by this nonsense. He’s the only one with the ability to clean it up, so of course he isn’t worried. He presses his hands deep in his pockets, stopping a foot or two away from Neal’s desperation and tilting his head ever so slightly to the side, like a dog hearing a noise too high for Neal’s ears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don't <em>have</em> to do anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal’s face falls. He has to have heard him wrong. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You heard me, Gold.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“August, they think I stole your car. Tell them I borrowed it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You mean lie?” August asks, his hands still shoved in his pockets, his head changing tilt slightly as if appraising Neal’s value. And Neal doesn’t like that look - has never been on the receiving end of that look before. It’s always been him and August against the world, he doesn’t understand why that appears to have changed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen, I’m sorry about the window. I’ll pay for it, I promise. But you have to tell them I borrowed it. Or at least tell them you want to drop the charges.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Frustrated, Neal tightens his grip on the bars in front of him. “Because they’re going to charge me if you don't! What is wrong with you tonight?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>August takes another step closer, lowering his voice to a whisper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, let’s see. I woke up to a call from the police saying they’d found my stolen car. I was super confused, you see, because when I went to bed it wasn’t stolen. Then they bring it back and someone has smashed the fuck out of the window - there’s glass everywhere, wires too - and last I get a crying phone call from Emma begging me to come clean up your mess. Again. That’s what's wrong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I’m sorry. About all that. But how many times have I bailed you out of trouble? We’re best friends, man, it’s what we do!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Best friends don’t steal each other's girls.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And the words, highlighted by the sharp curve of August’s grin, hit Neal like a ton of bricks. Suddenly, pieces of the puzzle click together. They had both always flirted with Emma. But they had also both always flirted with Ruby. And Wendy. And lots of other girls. Neal had always assumed it was harmless - it was on his part - and so when he’d asked Emma out back in sophomore year it had never occurred to him that August might have been planning the same thing. Now, three years of August making suggestive comments, of turning down Neal’s attempts to play matchmaker with Lily, of trying to talk him into breaking things off with Emma, it all made sense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal swallows hard, not sure what to say, but knowing that his plan hinged on August’s support, and now it seemed like he didn’t have it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cat got your tongue, finally?” August asks, his face too close to the bars. No longer a sideways smile, but a smug smirk filling his features. “So no, Neal. I won’t be helping you out. In fact, I’m going to need you to help me out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal stays silent, backing up from the cell bars, his brow furrowed in distrust as he looks at the man that has replaced his best friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to need you to go. So you’re going to take your stuff and that dumb plan to marry Emma and hightail it off to college a week early. You’re not going to tell anyone why you’re leaving. Least of all Emma. I’ll pay whatever fine they charge you with, don’t worry about it, just get out of her life and get out of my way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal’s entire mood soured, his words forced through gritted teeth. “She’s not an object, Booth. I can’t just hand her over to you. She chose me. And even if I leave - which I won’t, because it’s a stupid plan - she’s not going to choose you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you will. And I think she will, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why? Cause you’ll have them drop the charges if I agree? No, Emma is worth more to me than that. I don’t care. I’ll stay here. You can go home if you aren’t going to help. I need to call my dad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Would have called him first, if Neal had known how ridiculous this whole thing was going to turn out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Drop the charges? Oh, no,” August laughed. “You’re going to get charged. Unless you decide to stay. Then I’ll tell them it was Emma who stole my car. She’s over eighteen, Neal - they’ll give her five years for larceny. We both know that. Still want me to be your best man in a prison wedding?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal’s face goes white and even though the jail is swelteringly hot, he feels a chill run down his spine, the hairs on his arms standing as if the AC had kicked back on. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not what happened.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think it is. You smashed the window? Hot-wired it? Come on, Neal, we both know you’re dumb, but not that dumb. You’ve got a spare key. Pretty damning evidence if you ask me. No, I think Emma stole my car and you’re trying to protect her by taking the fall. And I intend to let you - take the fall that is. So long as you also take yourself far away from this town.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Neal doesn’t see that he has a ton of options. He continues to glare angrily through the bars as August's grin splits to reveal perfect white teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In a couple hours, they’re going to let you go. Give you a date to come back and pay your fine. I suggest you don’t fight it. Just head home, and then head out. You have until tomorrow morning to be long gone, or I'll march right back up here to this station and sort things out myself. Understand?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yes, Neal understands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watches August's tall frame disappear though the doorway of the county jail, without so much as a goodbye, Neal’s hateful glare trying to burn holes into his back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But more than angry, Neal feels hurt. Betrayed. Left behind. August was supposed to be his best friend in the world, above anything else, and yet even his worst enemy wouldn’t have pulled a stunt like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They do eventually let him go. They ask him to call his dad to come pick him up. He calls Lily Page instead. He knows that’s only going to delay the inevitable, they’ll call his dad tomorrow morning at the shop, no doubt, but for now all he needs is a ride home on his own reconnaissance. Lily will do for that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everything all right?” she asks, sitting in the driver’s seat of her mom’s borrowed car. But obviously not. She’s picking him up from jail in the middle of the night and they both know it should be August. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” he assures her, sitting silent for the rest of the drive back to his dad’s place, ignoring awkward attempts at small talk as he watches the streets of Storybrooke zoom by and says a silent goodbye to each one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because he can’t let Emma get charged with this. And he knows August well enough to know he isn’t bluffing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he goes to get out of the car, though, Lily has finally had enough with his sulky silence, and so she reaches across the car and slams the lock button down on his door, stopping him from leaving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lily, I need-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He swallows hard. Honestly, he’s still trying to piece all that together himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What’s going on is he loves Emma more than life itself, and had, until tonight, planned to marry her in under a year. What’s going on is apparently, August felt the same way about her - though he had never had the courage to say anything about it - and Neal resents him for both things. What’s going on is that he has to leave, to protect Emma and her future - a future without him. What’s going on is he won’t get a chance to say goodbye. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And suddenly, he realizes that Lily Page - in this car, tonight - is probably the last person in Storybrooke he is going to see before he leaves. Because he can’t tell Emma or she will selflessly tell the cops the real story. And he can’t tell his dad, because - less selflessly - he will do the same thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Who he can tell, is Lily. And so it will have to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something bad is about to happen,” he mumbles, his eyes fixing on her hand, still resting on the wheel, because he knows he can’t look her in the eye without crying. “But I want you to know, I’ve always loved Emma. And I always will. Because someone has to remember that. Can you remember that for me, Lily?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She bites her lip, an angry glare taking over her features.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re leaving her, aren’t you? Neal - she wants to come to Tallahassee with you! You dick, why would you ask her only to leave?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, Lily. Tell her I’m sorry, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And horror blossoms on Lily’s face. Absolute anger as the rest of the picture clicks into place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell her yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead he presses the lock button underneath her fingertips, opening the door to the car and stepping out in his father’s driveway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows he has started the clock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lily will call Emma. She’ll go get her, and drive her back over here so that they could yell at him together. She might even try to gather August - a wildcard in the whole scheme, maybe Neal could still count on him to delay the girls at least. But if not, he had about an hour to get his things and get to the bus stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that hour started now.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Neal has an hour before Emma gets here with Henry and he wants everything to be perfect. He is giddy in a way he hasn't felt since he was seventeen and planning a proposal. Nothing is perfect yet, that’s for sure, but he’s getting to spend Christmas with his son, and so that is a start.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s been in and out of the kitchen all morning, hindering more than helping Belle, but filled with too much nervous energy to not try and be useful to his stepmother in some way. Eventually, though, she grew tired of his assistance, thanking him for the thought and sending him out to make snowmen with Gideon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, an army of snowmen line the long driveway, waiting to greet guests for Christmas dinner. Neal is taking both his brother and his son sledding tomorrow, on his last day in Storybrooke before he has to head back to New York and worry about the mess waiting for him there. At least his dad is coming with him - more for support than anything else - as he returns Tamara’s car and picks up his meager possessions from her place. He also has to worry about putting in his two weeks notice and breaking off his lease agreement. He suspects his dad - king of deals and loopholes - will be much more helpful in those regards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, not perfect, but for the first time in ten years he is waking up to texts from Emma - falling asleep to dreams and ‘what ifs’ of the two of them. And so it’s a start. A damn good start.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After she let him in, he told her everything. And not just that night, but the days leading up to it. The months that followed it, too. He told her not just about August’s threat, but all the plans he had harbored for a proposal, about the fear in his stomach as he boarded that bus to New York, about the lonely months spent wondering what her life looked like without him - knowing that he couldn’t come back for five years or he risked August pressing charges against her. How silly that seemed now, pressing charges against his own wife?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But after five years, after the statute of limitations was up, why didn’t you come back?” she had asked, leaning forward on the edge of her seat, too enraptured by the story to see herself and the pain it had caused in his words. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t think I deserved to,” he admitted honestly. “I didn’t think you’d forgive me. I didn’t forgive me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods, sagely, leaning back in her chair and staring past him as if she isn’t really seeing him there in the chair at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then she begins to talk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because there are two sides to every story.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tells him about her and Lily trying to find him at the bus stop, not having guessed he would take the first one out, instead expecting him to be waiting there for the Greyhound to Florida. She tells him about finding out she was pregnant and deciding to take her parents up on that offer of going to Canada. She tells him about spending hours on the phone with the college Registrar, his father, and August - just trying to find some sort of clue as to where he had gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she tells him how, after a year, she gave up. About moving back to Storybrooke with Henry on her hip. About signing up for the police academy with her father’s help. About trying to rekindle her friendship with Lily and August and not wanting to acknowledge the painful missing piece of their little group. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>About how, eventually, August had tried to fill that space, and despite how things looked now, it had been good at first. Before the affairs, and the trips to Thailand, and the drugs, and all those other problems that surrounded them. At first, they had both felt closer to Neal when they were with each other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, it is Neal who finally gets a hold of August. He suspects his former friend has Emma’s number blocked to avoid all those pesky phone calls about where he is and when he’s coming back. She tries and she tries to reach him - leaving countless voicemails - first patient and calm, then escalating in anger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Neal’s phone rings once before there is a voice on the other line.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neal Gold?” he hears August’s rough grumble of a question on the other end of the line. “It’s been years.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It has, hasn’t it?” Neal says through gritted teeth, Emma sitting across the table from him, reaching impatiently for the phone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you want?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want anything,” Neal says quickly, “But Emma wants a divorce. Here, I’ll put her on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But in the span of seconds between the phone leaving his hand and it landing in Emma’s, the line goes dead. They can’t reach him again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But at least they’ve gotten their point across.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emma begins looking for an attorney online.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal begins looking for apartments in Storybrooke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither one brings up the topic of getting back together, but it’s there, in the back of their minds, in everything else they discuss. Henry’s custody. Emma’s house. Neal’s job. Every pressing concern seems laced with traces of their relationship, thought long-dead, now reawakening slowly as if from a coma.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And of course it’s there when Neal leaves his mother’s ring on the table before heading back to his father’s house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not a proposal, just a promise,” he tells her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal expects Emma to leave right after dinner, citing an excuse like Henry’s bedtime or being on call in the morning, because Emma has never once stayed in an awkward situation longer than she wanted to. But she doesn’t. She stays for a glass of brandy with his father, laughing as they both tease Neal just like they had back in high school - Henry and Gideon off in the basement trying to figure out how to hook up the new PlayStation to test out a few of Gideon's new games. The two know each other from school, and though are separated by two grades, seem to be fast friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He is surprised, when Belle offers to make up the couch for Emma to stay the night - it is snowing again and no one wants her to risk driving back in that mess - that she not only accepts, but seems a little relieved. Was he supposed to have offered, instead of waiting for his stepmother? He feels like a teenager again, unsure of himself and second-guessing everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But they sit on the couch, now covered in sheets and pillows, watching the fire crackle - too close to be acquaintances, too far to be lovers. Neal debates going for a casual stretch, wrapping his arm around her shoulder - but he can’t decide if it’s endearingly cheesy or immaturely awkward, so he just sits there, wondering what's racing through her mind as well. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know,” he starts, noticing the way she tenses at his words, as if surprised out of other thoughts, “This is the best Christmas I’ve had since that year we got snowed in for three days.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She chuckles softly with remembrance, “Yeah, that was a crazy year. You remember when Belle opened the door and all the snow just came pouring in. We had to spend hours mopping up the melted mess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was also the year she taught you to make cherry pie, wasn’t it?” he questions, remembering warm sugar and melted ice cream in front of a fire much like this one. And lots of jokes about ‘cherries’. They had been teenagers, after all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah - I was terrible at it, but you ate every last bite anyway and pretended it was the best pie ever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laughs. “It was!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are such a liar!” she says, snuggling into his side - ever the bold one of the two. And it’s nice, warm, comfortable as he brings his arms up around her and reflects on how different her tone is now, from when she had called him a liar five days ago in a jail cell. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Em,” he whispers into her hair, shifting his weight to lean back into the couch, pulling her with him to recline in comfort. “I’m sorry for everything. I know I've said it before. But I plan to keep saying it for as long as you’ll listen. I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry, I plan to keep listening,” she says, meant as a joke - but there is something a little more sincere behind those fragile words. “My lawyer says the divorce won’t go through for at least three more months, and Henry has a lot of questions and concerns about this whole mess, but I don’t see any harm in spending time with an old friend until then. Maybe even helping him move his things into a new place in a couple weeks - I’ve always wanted to see New York.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about helping him proofread his resume? You think the Rabbit Hole is hiring?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, like you won’t end up working for your dad again,” she chuckles, her fingers twisting through his and he’s suddenly aware of just how little privacy they have in his father’s house. Sure, everyone claims to be asleep now, but there is always the concern of his brother or father walking in. Or his son - that's a new one that will take some getting used to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I won’t!” he protests. “Even if I wanted to, that man would never hire me. Not after I broke in twice and smashed the ring case.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I give it two months, tops. Either you’ll get hired at the Rabbit Hole and realize how much you hate it there, or you won’t and you’ll spend two months holding onto your pride before you let Mr. Gold save the day like always.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He does make a habit out of micromanaging my business, doesn’t he?” Neal laughed, running his fingertips over the back of hers, the skin soft and warm - every bit as comforting as the way he remembered it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a good thing, too, or we wouldn’t be here,” she sighs, closing her eyes as she brings her head down to rest on his shoulder, and Neal knows he’ll be spending the night on the couch with her whether he wanted to or not. Not that he didn’t want to be spending the night with her - it’s just that his bed upstairs had a little more room and a lot more privacy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Speaking of here,” he mumbles, tracing over the empty space on her ring finger - that gold band has been missing for two days now - and bringing the fingertips lightly to his lips, “I notice you’re wearing my ring.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiles, tugging her hand away to play with the chain around her neck, Milah’s ring hanging proudly at the end like a pendant. She has a habit, Neal has noticed, of stroking it softly when distracted. Twirling the chain around her finger, pressing the emerald stones against her lips when thinking. He likes it a lot. Sure, he’d like it better on her finger - but he hadn't expected even this, and so it’s a blessing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” she smiles up at him, the gold of the ring band warm in her hands as she presses it against his. “It’s too pretty to keep in a box. You don’t mind, do you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mind? No, that was the intention.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just mean…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he knows what she means, as she trials off, doubt flashing behind those arctic blue eyes - as piercing and beautiful as the snow settling outside the window. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wear it however you like. I’ll get you a new one when we’re ready again - that one isn’t about us anymore. It’s yours Emma, it always has been. So wear it how you want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If,” she corrects silently. “<em>If</em> we’re ready again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” he amends, letting his eyes drift closed as her weight starts to grow and drowsiness pulls at the two of them like an impatient child. “<em>If</em> we’re ever there again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Neal isn't worried; he knows they will be.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>
    <em>Eleven Summers Ago</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>Neal’s room looks oddly untouched as he stands in the doorway holding his duffel bags, trying to work up the courage to leave. He feels like this should be more significant, a stark visual difference, but he had already packed his essentials last week and so mostly his room just looks the same - minus two heavy bags that hang from his hands like chains. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes in the fond memories one last time, his eyes scanning the room for the things he can’t take with him but he so desperately wants to remember. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>On his nightstand is one of Emma’s romance novels she had lent him - he is only halfway through and so he supposes he will never know how it ends. The folded pages, cramped with her tiny handwriting in the margins, reminds him of the two of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of the way the would sit in the park, both reading their own book, her head in his lap as they enjoyed the comradery of being together. They’d pass entire days in the sunshine like that, his fingers lazily running through her hair and down her spine, thinking of all the adventures they would have together when they were older and free to do what they wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Years later he would check the same book out from a public library in New York, only to be disappointed by the ending. At that point - no longer filled with the hopeful optimism of his youth, he finds the ridiculous reunion of the two protagonists a tad cheesy and scoffs at how easily all their past problems are forgotten. He pays the fine, because he keeps the book anyway.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>As his eyes continue to scan the room, they travel next to the pictures tacked to his wall above his bed, some of his favorite snapshots of his friends and Emma. There is the one from homecoming their freshman year, Emma’s blonde hair arranged in tight curls, the tie his father helped him with just a little too loose around his neck because Neal had been unable to stop playing with it. They had had so much fun that night, a year before they had even started dating. It had been a Casino theme and so they had sat at the black jack table almost all night, Emma winning all of Neal’s fake coins. Offering to buy him a drink from the snack bar at the end of the night. He had known he was in love even then.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Years later he will go to a real Casino, trying to recreate some of that fun, but finding the bright lights and garish colors to be nothing compared to Emma’s smile. He’ll lose all his money that night too, but won’t have the soft comfort of someone to buy him a drink afterward. He decides that maybe it wasn’t the casino he had liked, but the company.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Still his eyes travel on around his room, looking at the bookshelf where a painting of a bright sunflower sits. He remembers teaching Emma to paint that, trying his best to make her be serious. Instead she had smeared both her face and his with the neon paints, running fingers through his hair and leaving sticky streaks of color. She had teased him that he was too serious when he painted; she told him she liked it better when he did all the painting for her, and found wonderful ways to distract him. It had taken forever to wash all that paint off, and at the end of the day her own tiny canvas had been barley recognizable as a flower, but still Neal displays it on his shelf proudly.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Years later he would paint roses for Tamara - she didn’t like the yellow of sunflowers - on an end table she had found at a thrift store and wanted refurbished. She would chastise him for the childish design, and he would spend a couple hours sanding the paint back off only to cover the table in a simple but elegant stain. But every time he sat a coaster or his book down on that little end table he would think of the roses underneath and the sunflowers he wished were there.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And lastly his eyes fall on the empty top of his dresser. He has left the ring box tucked inside the bottom drawer, too painful to look at. He doesn’t want to think about it and all the dreams that sit trapped inside that diamond like sand in an hourglass. And that reminds him that he really must get going.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As he turns to carry his things down the stairs as quietly as possible, panic swells in his chest and he is tempted to run back and grab the ring.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But what’s the point?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ring belongs to Emma, the woman he is leaving behind, and he can’t ever imagine wanting to give it to anyone else.</span>
</p>
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